


I wade through full lands

by sandyk



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adopted Peter Parker, Bisexual Peter Parker, Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), F/M, Kidnapped Peter Parker, Kidnapping, Mourning, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Pepper Potts Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Underage Drinking, consenting sixteen year olds have sex with other consenting sixteen year olds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24243679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Six months after May Parker died, three months after Peter is adopted by Pepper and Tony, Peter's new life as a super rich teen who is also secretly Spider-man is starting now. Six months of firsts.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64
Collections: The Het Big Bang 2019-2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not mine, no profit garnered. Title from PJ Harvey's a place called home. Thanks a!!! so much!
> 
> Wonderful art here:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TheHetBigBang2019_2020/works/24490768
> 
> And here:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TheHetBigBang2019_2020/works/24256381

Peter was sixteen years and five days old. Things were better than he would have expected. For once, he'd been in a good mood since he woke up. Now he was happy and anxious as he waited for MJ to come out of the pool house. 

She had a pretty simple one piece swimsuit in red, and she was shaking her head. "I know you've been officially adopted for, like, months, but every time," she said. She waved her hands at the huge pool and the pool house and all of it. "This shit is wild."

Peter laughed a little. "I think that a lot, too. But hey, we can go swimming without there being four hundred other kids in the pool. Like, nice? Right?" For our date, he thought. "Our date," he said.

"Our date," MJ said, laughing herself and looking away. "So far so good. Right?" She walked over to the edge of the pool and took off her flip flops. 

"Date," Peter said. "Okay, okay." He couldn't think of anything more to say, so he literally just cannonballed into the pool. 

He heard MJ squeal and when he came up for air, she was on the other side of the pool. She said, "We can have a conversation, loser."

"We were doing great, weren't we?" He swam over to her in a second, enjoying being strong. "Wanna race? Or something?"

"Yeah, I'm totally stupid enough to try to compete against Spider-man," she said. She rolled her eyes and then flipped on her back. "Maybe I just want to float here and enjoy the sun."

"Works for me," Peter said. 

They managed to actually talk, first about the Olympics and then about how hard synchronized swimming probably was - they both sucked trying to coordinate their back strokes so it was clearly super hard - then Peter described in detail the plot of the episode of Bob's Burgers where the kids took synchronized swimming. Peter went into the pool house and found the blow up unicorn floaty and the donut one. He blew up both of them himself, easy as pie, and took the donut one. 

MJ said, from her floating unicorn, "If I said I wanted lemonade, would a drone bring it?"

"Would you even want that?" 

MJ shrugged. 

"I'll get it," Peter said. He got out of the donut badly and then went to the pool house. He brought out super cold lemon sparkling water. He swam over to MJ and handed it to her. "Sorry, I'm not a drone."

"How is it so stocked? Like, the refrigerator is full, all the drawers in the bathroom have clothes, the towels are wild and fluffy, and that's just the pool house. Which is basically an entire little place you could live in," MJ said.

"Yeah, it's wild," Peter said. "Are you gonna get upset if I get used to it?"

MJ looked at him seriously. He appreciated that. "Peter, you've had it rough." Thankfully, that was all she said about that. "If anyone deserves it, and really no one actually deserves this kind of unethical billionaire wealth, but you would make that hypothetical list. Plus, I bet you're sort of incorruptible."

"Power tends to corrupt," Peter said. 

"Who said that?" MJ leaned too far forward and fell out of her unicorn. She managed not to spill her can of lemonade though. "It's a decathlon question, come on."

"John Alcorn," Peter said. 

They were in the pool another two hours. MJ actually did try to race him after Peter promised to not use his left arm. He still won. Peter helped MJ hook up her phone to the sound system by the pool. It was typical of everything in the house, it worked amazing. MJ did an ugly and unnecessary dive and then came up saying, "There are speakers in the pool? Under water?"

Peter nodded and then went under to hear it himself. 

MJ said, "Okay, I'm pruning up. Let's go inside."

Peter showered and changed into the clothes he'd brought down to the pool house before MJ came. The sun seemed extra bright and he put on a pair of random sunglasses from one of the drawers inside. 

MJ came out in her jean shorts and plain black t-shirt. She said, "Jeez, you honestly look like some awful white boi bro who grew up super wealthy."

He blinked at her tone. "Are you saying that like it's hot?"

MJ laughed and blushed. He could tell because she was standing right next to him and his lounger. She said, "It's embarrassing. But in my defense, American television colonizes the minds of all of us." He watched her lift her leg and then sit down on his stomach. Oh, he thought. He felt the warmth of her on top of him. He reached out tentatively for her thigh and she smiled. She leaned over him and kissed him. She pressed her hands on his chest. She said, "Come on, tell me how rich you are. Tell me how removed you are from people who don't have millions to waste on their spoiled brat kid." She giggled and kissed his neck. 

He said, "Um. Uh." Then he said, "Uh, I went to private school. Definitely not PS 87. Philips Exeter?" He moved his hand up under her shorts, his thumb up and down on the seam of her underwear. He got to touch her, wherever she let him. That was awesome. 

"Yeah," MJ said, a little breathy. "Nice roleplay. Keep it up."

She unzipped her shorts so everything wasn't so tight. At least not for her. MJ was so awesome. She leaned down again and gasped a little when Peter took a little time touching her before he just had his whole hand cupping her between her legs. He said, "Um. I don't know the name of any of the maids." MJ was wet and he was exploring. Seeing what made her twitch. But also, he said, "That's not true at all. I know all their names, we talk all the time." She pushed into his hand, even more as he traced little circles and his thumb was almost probably near her clit. Fuck, she was so pretty. 

He suddenly remembered her swearing at someone "suck my clit." Maybe Flash? He closed that thought off quickly. 

"Peter," MJ said. "I knew you were just saying that." She moaned a little and her thighs tightened as he pushed his finger in. Again, she let him do that, it was okay to do that. Awesome. "Come on, tell me about how you don't even know the limit of your debit card."

"I actually don't," he said. He had two fingers inside her and maybe it was the spider thing but he was feeling overwhelmed just by the sensation from his fingers and thumb. The rush of her heartbeat. He said, "I look at colleges and don't even consider the tuition. I might, uh, major in Latin. Just whatever."

"Ooh, that's good," she said. She was pushing herself back on his hand. He brought up his other hand on her perfect butt. Her breath was very warm on his neck. 

"I don't summer in Europe," Peter said, remembering something Tony had said. "Summer weather in Europe sucks, so I go to, um, Rio."

"Wow," MJ said. Her heart rate was so fast and her breath was shallow and he was pretty sure she was close. 

"I'm really bad at this, the roleplaying. I just want to say you're beautiful," he said. "You're just gorgeous and wonderful. This is awesome."

"Thank you," she said. She was undulating and he never got to use that word, even just in his head. "Tell me about your watch." She giggled.

"Oh, oh, that's actually probably priceless," he said. He rubbed his wrist a little on her butt, so she could feel the band. "It's a panic button and it monitors my heart rate and all that. Also it links to my phone. But it also has so many other functions, like --"

"Okay, that's more science tech geek than rich boy," MJ said. "Good try, though." She was very close, and he was very close to doing something embarrassing in his pants. Then she just came apart and she sighed against his neck. 

That was a lot for the first date, he thought. They'd kissed, he'd felt her up yesterday right after he'd asked her out. Now they'd done this. He really liked this. 

"One sec," she said. She just laid on his chest, breathing slowly. Then she got up off him and said, "Pool house. Come with me."

"Yeah?" She grabbed his forearm and dragged him along with her. He wondered if it would be gross to just get himself off while MJ was in the bathroom. But then she came out and sat down on his thighs. He wanted to, he had to think hard before he came just from that. 

She said, "You could take off your pants. At least a little." 

He said, "Sure." As soon as he had his jeans around his thighs, MJ was gripping his dick. He was already very very hard and then she was kissing him, too. 

MJ sat back a little and said, "Why are you not even wearing underwear?"

"I didn't remember to bring any down when I brought my clothes down here," he said. He held her thigh and then he came and grunted in a slightly gross way. He was glad everything was moving so fast he didn't have time to be self-conscious about the first time she was seeing him kind of naked. 

"And now I wash my hands for the second time, and you wash yours and then you tell me where that soap in the bathroom came from," she said. "It's somehow really moisturizing and not clammy." 

As they started to walk towards the actual house, MJ said, "Carry me." She sort of jumped on him and he got to hold onto her butt. He really liked her butt. She was laughing in his ear. Giddy, even. 

He did not drop her when he saw Tony, but he did shift his grip. MJ said, "Hey, Mr. Stark, do you have drones to deliver lemonade? Also, this is just occurring to me but do you have cameras, like, everywhere on this property?"

"Yes on the drones, and yes on the cameras. But don't worry, there are built in protocols that delete any kind of hanky panky from the family," Tony said. Peter did almost drop MJ there because he never even thought about that. 

MJ dropped down herself and said, "Wait, you actually have a protocol so your cameras stop when your teen starts kissing his date?"

Tony looked unfazed. "No, they don't stop, they just delete after it's over and everyone's fine. Otherwise it's a hole in the surveillance. And it's been around a lot longer than Peter."

MJ said, "Oh, okay. I guess, right, security. You have to think about security."

"Thank you? I'm not used to winning these arguments with you," Tony said. 

MJ shrugged. "I kinda care about Peter's security."

"Thank you," Peter said.

"Also, did you ever summer in Europe?" She grinned a little. 

Peter looked down and tried not to blush. Tony said, "No, the weather sucks. I generally went to Brazil or Australia." 

MJ giggled again and kissed Peter on the mouth before she left. 

Tony said, "I don't want to know. I'm responsible parenting here and trusting you on this one."

"On the, what did you call it? Hanky panky?" Peter grinned. 

"Sorry, it was the first thing that came out of my mouth," Tony said. "I think Jarvis probably said it to me."

"Your AI?"

"No." Tony had a soft smile. "The man. My actual butler, my dad's butler. He basically did most of the work raising me. Even he couldn't make hanky panky sound anything but ridiculous." Tony glanced at Peter and exhaled deeply. "And if you need any hanky panky questions answered, ethics wise or mechanics wise, I'm here."

"Mechanics?" Peter was pretty sure he would die before he even contemplated that. 

The next day Peter was in the pool by himself. He floated on his back and stared at the grey clouds. He could smell the rain. When it started falling it was gentle, almost soft on his body. He didn't move when the rain fell harder. It was just an odd sensation. 

Pepper came down to the pool with her hoodie on and the hood pulled up. She said, "Peter. Come up to the house. We'll make soup."

He flipped over and swam to the side. He pulled himself out of the water. "Soup sounds good."

He knew he probably looked like an idiot floating in a pool, getting rained on, but he was fine. He would always be fine. 

He adjusted. May had died the day after Valentine's Day, so that was one holiday forever ruined. Tony and Pepper had taken him in and Peter assumed everything was temporary, they were just taking care of him while something else was arranged. Whatever that was. When he'd been there, living with Tony and Pepper first in a penthouse they owned looking over Central Park and then in this mansion still in Manhattan, he figured it wasn't forever. Eleven weeks in, then at dinner Tony said, "We should talk."

Peter had babbled about maybe he could live with Ned until Tony had cut him off. He said he and Pepper were going to adopt Peter. That it was their fault he had felt like maybe it was temporary. Peter had been surprised. He was surprised when Tony and Pepper eloped after their lawyers told them adoption would be easier if they were married. They took Peter with them and went down to DC to get married in the house of a judge Tony's mother knew. The judge was one of the older Supreme Court Justices, and Peter had gotten an autograph from her for MJ.

He was still surprised when the adoption went through so quickly even though Tony kept saying, "We're billionaires. Tragic but true, lots of laws just don't get applied to us."

Pepper had made Peter go see a counselor since a week after May died. Tony was the one who proposed the family therapy. It wasn't awful. It was actually nice. He was getting used to Pepper and Tony taking time out of their days for him. They did exercises, too. It was so weird but also nice. 

It was nice. 

Ned and MJ and a lot of the kids from school were actually super supportive. Even Flash. Most days Peter thought he was just moving through each hour, working by rote. He put one foot in front of the other and eventually he fell asleep and then he woke up and it was another day. 

MJ had made it clear she knew Peter was Spider-man and he wasn't really up to the effort of lying to her. He asked her out because his personal counselor told him he was allowed to, that he didn't have to do anything, there were no rules to grief and how you recovered. 

Both of his counselors spent a lot of time talking about grief. Grief was a wave, it was a feral thing, it was a pit you never climbed out of. A lot of metaphors. Peter tried not to say he probably should have learned how to do it now. He had so much experience. 

Also, he was now rich. He was in Tony's will and Pepper's will and if anything happened to the two of them at the same time, he would be taken care of by Colonel Rhodes. He had a debit card that he didn't think had a limit. He understood there probably was a monetary limit, but he was sure he'd never meet it. He had a college fund that he assumed would pay for as many PhDs as he would ever want. Gradually, all his possessions were being replaced by way more expensive models. Even his underwear cost, like, a hundred dollars now. 

He was way more happy with that now that he knew it was some weird kind of turn on for MJ. 

He started back as Spider-man a week after May died. Everything was really quiet. He did it once a week every week since. It was all getting better. In increments. 

The day after the adoption went through, Tony came into his bedroom and said, "I have this for you."

"It's a flip phone," Peter said. He sat up and took it. He didn't open it.

Tony said, "It's a cloned flip phone. If the world is ending, if we're at that level of disaster, you open that phone and you call that number and you get help."

"Who would I be calling?" Peter still didn't open it. 

"Steve Rogers," Tony said. "But only if it's really serious. And call me first in case of disasters, but if I can't be there or the disaster is huge, then you use the red phone. I know it's not red."

Peter nodded. "I get it," he said. "I understand the kind of situation when I should use the super Captain America panic button flip phone."

"I'm giving you this because I don't want anything bad to ever happen to you," Tony said. He said it in that tone like he was being forced to say it. He always said honest things about his feelings in that tone. 

Leading up to his sixteenth birthday, Peter was super clear to every single person in his life (the ones still alive) that he didn't want to do shit for his birthday. He'd previously had plans, those plans wouldn't happen and he just wanted to do nothing. 

Ned said he should ask for a big gift, though. "Like, end homelessness."

MJ said, "Good one. Oh, make Tony fix the Avengers. We need them back together."

"Yup," Peter said. "I'll get him on both of those." Instead, he got two cars. One for learning how to drive and casual commuting, one insanely expensive one for when he had a more formal occasion. 

"That's just what I wanted," Peter said, rolling his eyes. Pepper mouthed "told you so" at Tony. 

Peter adjusted. 

The story about Tony adopting Peter was already out in the press. It wasn't affecting Peter's life that much right now, but school hadn't started. Maybe it would suck then. 

He laid on his bed and tossed his flip phone up and caught it and tossed it again and caught it. Peter got up from his bed and went to find Tony. 

Tony was in the lab in the mansion. It was bigger than the one in the penthouse and smaller than the one in the compound. Peter liked to hang out there sometimes. Peter sat down next to Tony. Tony said, "What's up?"

"Why do you believe enough in Steve Rogers's essential virtue to give me this phone but not enough to, like, fix things?" 

Tony nodded and put down his tools. He said, "Good question."

"I know," Peter said. 

"Well, there was this moment, really hard on our relationship, when he lied to me about knowing my parents were murdered and who did it," Tony said. He was using his forced to be honest tone. Peter saw Tony's hands shake and just wanted to withdraw the question. He leaned into Tony's shoulder and closed his eyes. 

"That sounds shitty," Peter said. "But you still think enough of him that you gave me this phone."

"I would give you Hitler's number if I thought it would save your life, kid," Tony said. He patted Peter's hair. 

"Hitler wouldn't be good in an emergency. He's dead," Peter said. "Right?"

"Yes, he's dead. Trust me on this one," Tony said. "Okay, you asked, I'll think about it. We won't be bringing this to Peppermint Patty, okay?"

"One day, you're going to slip up and call her that in family therapy."

"I'm way too smart for that," Tony said. "You can nap on the couch, if you want."

Which Peter did. He woke up at two am and Tony was actually gone. Peter got food and then he worked out in the gym. Half the equipment had been looted from the compound, all the ones Steve liked to use. Maybe Peter would call him if the treadmill broke. 

He ate again, went back to his summer long binge of Forensic Files. MJ loved it, so Peter watched it. Pepper said it was gross but she usually got sucked in. 

"I feel like this is a Spider-man day," he said to the empty room. Twice a week this week.

One Forensic Files episode later, Pepper sat down next to him. "You can't do this sleep and wake at your whim thing when school's back."

"School's in two weeks," Peter said. "Next week I'll get back to the nine to five routine."

Pepper nodded. Then she said, "Tony said something about hanky panky when MJ was here."

"Yeah," Peter said. "He really did use that word."

"I know," Pepper said, laughing a little. "But also, I wanted to talk about, ugh, there is no way to say this, your sexual history." She sounded like she was gagging a little. 

"Is it history when it's like, three people? I'm barely sixteen," Peter said. "Tony's an outlier, you know."

"Don't I know it," Pepper said. "Three? I've heard you talk about MJ and Liz."

Peter shrugged. "Jordan. That was freshman year. He was a nice guy, probably still is? We used to hang out and made out a few times, but then he freaked out or his parents freaked out and he transferred to this Catholic private school." Peter wasn't worried per se, but he was still a little bracing himself. He cared about Pepper and she was probably cool, but you never really knew.

"But he was nice to you? That's what I care about," she said. She patted his knee. 

"He was nice to me," Peter said. "It's okay. I don't talk about him because he's not in my school anymore and he doesn't, like, talk to me. I think I'm blocked on his insta. Which sucks."

"That's on him," Pepper said. "He's the one choosing that."

"I know," Peter said. "I already talked to, we talked this one out."

"Oh, with May?"

"With Ben, actually," Peter said. "He said the same thing."

Pepper smiled. She said, "I like hearing about Ben from you." Then she said, "So, okay, only three people, what've you done?"

Peter blushed. "It's not, you know, kissing, groping, and um," he made a jerking off gesture and really wanted to crawl away. 

"If you can do it, you can say it."

"Hand job?" Peter's voice definitely cracked. He was pretty sure he could just melt into the floor. "And like, whatever you call it when you do that for a girl. And had that done to me, and like, a singular blowjob. Please let me stop."

"You can stop," Pepper said. "I just want to know so we can make sure you get all the tests or whatever else you need at your check up."

"Like if I have an STD? I'm pretty sure I don't," Peter said. He was literally going to die sitting there. 

"There's nothing, ugh, this is a longer discussion and I think we both need a break. But I can send you some articles, some reading about the way we attach moral weight to illness. It's a bad thing, essentially," Pepper said. "I'll send you that."

"That sounds great, send that, yup," Peter said. "Okay, I'm heading out."

"Queens? Call a driver," Pepper said.

"I can take the subway," Peter said.

Pepper looked down at her tablet and did a little browsing. Then she showed the screen to Peter. It was a picture of him out with Pepper from Page Six. Pepper said, "I'd really prefer you take a driver."

"Fine," Peter said. "He can take me to Ned's." 

"Don't be so sexist, we have women drivers, too," Pepper said, smiling.

"Got it." Peter started to turn off the show. Pepper frowned at him so he did nothing and she settled in on the couch to watch the rest of the episode. 

He went to Ned's first and then patrol. It was hot and gross though the suit had a great cooling system. First up was a few petty crimes, easily stopped. He generally let the non-violent ones go, with some helpful advice about finding a different income source. Today there weren't any violent ones, so that was easy enough. 

He ran into three homeless guys trying to build a shelter in an alley. It wasn't against the law, and they hadn't hurt anyone. He remembered Ned telling him to solve homelessness. Which wasn't what he was going to do this afternoon. But he could help the guys. They seemed nice enough. After he helped them put up their tarp, he used his debit card that didn't have his name on it to buy them all little fans. It was only a little but he wasn't sure what the right big gesture would be. He texted Ned to send him some ideas on the whole solving homelessness idea. 

Nothing earth shattering that needed him to call Captain America. 

When it got dark, he changed out of the suit and into his regular, increasingly expensive clothes. He waited for MJ at a diner near her apartment.

MJ sat down next to him and said, "Are you wearing that on purpose? I'm reprogramming my mind, loser. You can't turn me on so easily."

"Actually, it was the first thing I grabbed. I told you, every week I open the drawers and there's new clothes in there." The waiter came over and MJ ordered for both of them. Peter loved when she did that. 

"That's weird and wrong," MJ said. "If it actually bothers you, tell Pepper to stop."

"I'm pretty sure it's Tony," Peter said. "I don't super mind, I don't really care."

"That's no way to become an influencer," MJ said. "You have all the other ingredients for it."

"Lots of influencers don't have money before they start influencing, look at all those cats," Peter said. 

"Grumpy cat," MJ said. 

Peter frowned in an exaggerated fashion. MJ giggled a little. 

After dinner, they were holding hands and she kissed him, as they lingered in front of the diner. In front of the car and the driver. MJ said, "We can't go to my place. I'm not going all the way to Manhattan."

"So no, uh, hanky panky?"

MJ shrugged but also kissed him again. "There's the back of your car. The very roomy back of that car."

"What about the driver?"

The driver said, "It's fine." She sounded very bored. 

Peter set aside his guilt to think about later and got in the back seat with MJ. He reached for her and she was practically in his lap. She immediately reached for his dick, rubbing at his jeans and then unzipping his pants. He kissed her jaw and her neck as she started giving him a really wonderful handjob. So nice. Very fucking nice. He was clinging to her waist. He was thrusting up into her hand, his grip tightened on her waist and he came, pressing his forehead against her chest. 

She grabbed a fluffy towel to clean him up. He said, "Do you feel rushed? I feel rushed."

"Hmm. Let's make out slowly then, no rushing." They kept kissing and kissing and he was pulling at her leg, holding her butt. She pushed up into him. "I think this is just humping," she said with a giggle. 

"Is it working for you?" He tugged at the back of her jeans, pulling them down. 

"Totally," she said. "Wait." She rearranged his jeans and his underwear so he was all tucked in. She kissed his cheek. She pulled her jeans down the rest of the way. 

He very deliberately took all the time he had. He was definitely getting better at this and he was very very focused on her enjoyment. He loved when he could just touch her and see her feeling good. When she came she was nearly incoherent. He felt a little pride there. He hadn't been doing this very long, but he really wanted to be good at it for MJ's sake. 

She patted his hair. "Don't be so fucking smug."

Peter half opened the car door and smiled at the driver. The driver said, "Great. Excellent. Time to take you two home."

"She seems like she really likes us," MJ said. "We're awful."

It was weird driving back to Manhattan. Peter definitely felt weird. Then the minute he got home, Tony was waiting in the living room. He said, "Kid, I've done much worse to so many of my drivers." 

"How did you know about that, that I thought it was -"

"Because you're you, and I checked on the driver and she said she was chilling while you two were hankypankying. I'm really falling in love with that word. If I use it, will it come back around to being cool?" Tony smiled and patted Peter on the shoulder. 

"Even you can't do that," Peter said. 

School started up again. It was weird. Everyone knew he'd been adopted and by who. Mostly, people stared a lot when he passed. The kids he sort of knew either stopped talking to him altogether or talked to him way too much. At least the decathlon kids were basically normal. 

MJ talked him into signing up for an afterschool dance class. MJ brought it up. She said, playing with her food, "It's good for you. Artistic expression, different kind of training." She took a bite of her sandwich. "Also, like, my grandfather danced with Alvin Ailey. My brother was talking about it."

Ned said, "Well, I love that idea but my mom is forcing me to volunteer two days a week with the church youth group. She said that if I'm not there to provide leadership, they'll do another project where they just give out pamphlets about the dangers of premarital sex."

"You're fighting a good fight," Peter said. "Hey, I've been thinking about it, like, if I'm going to ask Pepper and Tony to solve homelessness, they probably want a plan. Or something like a plan?"

"I'll get to work on it," Ned said. 

"I'll help," MJ said. 

Pepper thought dance class was a fantastic idea so he had another thing to do with his days. He had a schedule. Between decathlon, dance class, important best friend time, Spider-man, and his personal therapy he basically had every other Friday off and some weekends. Peter liked being active. If he just kept going, people pointed him in the direction he needed to go. 

Two, three weeks could pass and he almost didn't notice.


	2. Chapter 2

He remembered back in April, before anyone mentioned adoption and Peter was just, he assumed, temporarily at the penthouse, he'd been numbly watching something on television. It was a movie? Maybe. Streaming from some service. Tony had everything. It was one a.m., probably. It was late. Peter was out in some part of the living room, kitchen, dining room, whatever open sort of layout main room. He'd always done his homework out there. But he was watching something and Pepper came out of the other part and sat down next to him. She'd turned off the television and everything was very dark for a moment.

But not really, because there was ambient light out the wall of windows and things with soft lights back in the kitchen. Pepper had said, "Do you know what you were watching?"

"No," Peter had said. "Sorry. No."

"I hate that movie. Irrationally, I totally hate it. It came out, it was between the Expo and the invasion in New York." Her voice had been casual. Peter was still getting used to the idea that she cared about him. At that point, he wasn't that convinced. Pepper said, "I went to see it with my cousin." Pepper's cousin Ginny came to the surprise wedding. She was Pepper's best friend. 

Pepper said, "I had my very first panic attack in the theater, watching that not very good movie. I don't even know why. And how I lasted that long working for Tony and dating Tony without a panic attack, I have no idea." She'd smiled. "The shrink I saw very discreetly thought it was anxiety, general version. Years later, when we finally convinced Tony to get treatment for his PTSD, I realized we had the same thing, different expressions of it."

"Oh," Peter had said. "Do you think - like, what?" He wasn't very articulate. He should have been in bed.

Pepper said, "I was telling you that because you're going to start seeing a new counselor tomorrow. Also, you really were watching that movie I hate."

"No more grief counseling, you mean?" He'd felt like he was blinking too much. Or not enough. One of those two. 

"Well, counseling focused on grief and other things happening in your life. Don't worry, Genie won't freak if you tell her you're Spider-man." Pepper rubbed his shoulder. He was still getting used to her hugging him, reaching out to him. 

"Cause I have PTSD? Or anxiety?"

"Mr. Withers," who was Peter's grief counselor he'd been seeing once or twice a week since May died, "suggested you needed someone who can help with those things but I think I'll let actual professionals give you a specific diagnosis." Pepper had smiled again. "Tony and I want to make sure you're okay."

Before they passed him on to wherever he'd been going, that had been Peter's assumption then. But now he had Genie once a week, family counseling with Patty every two weeks. He was just booked solid with mental health professionals. Appointment to appointment to school to home to being Spider-man to dance class to Academic decathlon to hanging out with Ned. And in between a little sleeping and eating. 

He walked out with MJ from their dance class and he grabbed her waist, pulled her closer to him. MJ was very intent on continuing the conversation they were having before class. She said, "You basically dated Liz for two days."

"Two and a half," he said. "I count from when I asked her out to when we went to the dance."

"And in the span of that sixtyish hours, you, there was a blowjob?"

Peter nodded. "Are you going to be judgey? Are you being judgey?" Peter looked behind and saw his bodyguards about a foot away. He wished he could be like Tony and ask for a loose follow. Plus, the two men were basically cover, even if they didn't know it. Peter could take care of himself, but no one was supposed to know. 

MJ inhaled. She said, "Maybe. We've been a thing for three months and we just --"

"There was a blowjob," Peter said quietly. He kissed her cheek. "You are being very sex negative. Judgey."

"No, it's more, like, okay, Liz is very intimidating," MJ said. She slowed down and then stopped walking altogether. She was slouching a little so they were basically eye to eye. She said, "I mean, she's incredibly beautiful, she's smart, no one has ever described her as weird."

Peter nodded. "I like that people describe you as weird. I can like different things about different people."

"So that's why I'm being judgey, which I stop right now," MJ said. "And if you tell anyone I was, I'll kill you."

"Even my shrink?"

MJ untangled herself from him which he lowkey hated. "Fine, tell them, but no one else." She kissed him and then started walking away. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you," Peter said. He turned the other way so he could walk to where the car was parked. His bodyguards had figured out they were saying their goodbyes and were walking slightly ahead of Peter. 

Something itched and then it was just full blown run run run. He could see someone, two someones walking briskly towards him. Peter turned to run, but then someone grabbed his arm. Peter looked at the hand on his arm and then at the gun pointing right at him. "No," he said, loudly. 

The guy holding his arm was really strong. Someone pressed against his back, their arm coming up under Peter's free arm. "Don't worry, no need to reveal anything," a woman's voice said in his ear. 

She shot the guy holding Peter's arm. A second quick shot took out the guy behind the guy. He saw a glimpse of the woman running into the street. There were two men sprawled in front of him bleeding a lot. His ears were ringing from the sound, it was so loud.

That was a breath. Then one of his bodyguards grabbed Peter and patted him down. "No injuries?" 

Peter gestured at the two men still bleeding out but he realized the question was for him. "No, no, I'm fine. I'm fine." 

The bodyguard pulled open the door to the car which somehow had just pulled up and shoved Peter inside. The door slammed shut and Peter heard the bodyguard slapping the top of the car. One of the bodyguards said, "Go, go." The car pulled out with a screech. 

"I can't believe we're moving this fast in traffic," Peter said, sounding like an idiot. His phone buzzed and even before Peter could tap to open it, the screen with Tony's face popped up. 

"Peter, are you alright?"

"Yes, yeah," Peter said. He held up his arm, with all the bruising. "Just this. This guy grabbed my arm and he held a gun on me. Then, I think, I think it was Black Widow."

Tony said, "What?"

"She was behind me and she shot both guys, she said I didn't have to reveal myself, specifically," Peter said. His heart was beating so fast. "Why am I freaking out?"

"Why wouldn't you be?" Tony frowned. "We're going to stay on the phone until you get here, okay?"

"Okay," Peter said. 

When they got back to the mansion, as soon as Peter got out of the car there was a doctor reaching for his arm. They took pictures of his arm and then actually took x-rays in a medbay like place Peter did not realize was in their basement. Someone gave him sweats to change into and then everything in his backpack was handed back to him in a clear plastic bag. He could feel his super emergency flip phone solid at the bottom. 

Tony was there and he hugged Peter very hard. Peter would have protested but it was really comforting. Then Tony said, "Cops and FBI and SHIELD are upstairs. Leave out the part about Nat, okay?"

Peter nodded. It took him a second to realize Nat was Black Widow. Peter said, "They were really trying to kidnap me."

"Probably," Tony said. "Most likely. Because of me." He sounded very matter of fact. 

"That's scary," Peter said. "I'm not used to people trying to hurt me when I'm not in the suit."

"Try not to say that to the cops," Tony said. 

Peter nodded again. It was actually pretty easy to be just a fucking scared out of his mind teenager. Everyone was very nice to him. Pepper sat down next to him on the couch somewhere in the middle of everything and had a pretty strong side hug. 

Also in the middle of everything, another set of bodyguards brought them food. Finally, people drifted off, and Peter looked down at his phone. He had a million texts, most of them from Ned and MJ. 'I'm okay, it's okay' he texted them. He scrolled through and saw there were articles about the kidnapping attempt already. 

He hadn't even been to his room. "Oh," he said. Pepper squeezed his shoulder. 

She said, "What?"

"I was just remembering the last time someone had a gun on me when I wasn't," Peter said. 

Pepper hugged him. "I know, sweetie, it was your uncle. It's okay."

Peter closed his eyes. 

Eventually he went back to his room. He called Ned. "Hey, I'm okay." 

"You better be," Ned said. "Are you really okay? Or are you just freaking out?"

"Little of both," Peter said. 

"I was thinking about Ben," Ned said. "He was a really good guy. You've got a lot of good people."

"Including you, dude," Peter said.

"Well, sure," Ned said. "Do you want to talk about, um, anything else?"

"Absolutely," Peter said. "Let me get out my laptop."

He somehow managed to fall asleep. He still woke up three different times during the night. Each time, Pepper or Tony was there. It was really nice. 

He got up at his regular time. He hadn't done any of his homework but he figured he had a pass. "I kind of need a new backpack?" Peter held up his plastic bag. "Is my old one evidence?"

"Basically," Tony said. He rubbed his chin and looked confused. "Do we have spare backpacks? We have to."

"We do," Pepper said. "There's at least three in your closet, Peter. I think they're in the back?"

"I should have thought to check," Peter said. "Do I need a note to explain that I didn't do my reading or should I just show my teachers CNN?"

Pepper nearly smiled. She said, "You never know their politics, show them Fox News, too, just in case."

Peter noticed he had bodyguards standing outside the school now. Like he wasn't a fucking spectacle already. He sighed. 

He barely saw MJ before she was wrapped around him. He said, "Good to see you, too. I told you I was fine."

"I know," MJ said. "But I like to verify." She was definitely shaking a little. But he didn't say anything. 

He said, "I have to get to class now."

"Sure," MJ said. She finally let go of him. 

He sat down in his seat and put his head down on his arms. He saw Flash sitting down, he'd forgotten Flash was here. He braced himself.

Instead, Flash said, "Have they made you take a K&R class yet? They will now. When I took it, the teacher was a jerk. He hated that Russell Crowe movie about K&R guys. I brought it up all the time to piss him off."

"There was a Russell Crowe film about kidnap and rescue guys?"

"Yeah," Flash said. "It's not good."

"Cool," Peter said. 

Luckily it was a therapy day so he got to talk all about it all afternoon. It was only an hour but it felt much longer. Pepper was waiting for him when he got out. She hugged him hello. Pepper was really huggy with Peter, he definitely appreciated it. She said, "Tony is busy tonight, do you want to go to dinner? You pick."

They had burgers and fries at some "hidden gem" Happy had told Pepper about. It was really good. Peter tried not to notice their bodyguards. 

He was feeling pretty raw, like always after therapy. He said, "Sorry you got stuck with me."

"Tonight? I'm not stuck with you, I love eating with you," she said. 

"I meant more, like in general," he said. He drank all his coke. A waiter appeared out of nowhere and refilled it right away. "I know Tony felt responsible for me. Because of," he whispered. "Spider-man."

Pepper rolled her eyes. "That's ridiculous. You know, I told you and I meant it, when Tony was, being Tony about actually talking to you and adopting you, I told him I'd leave him and take you with me."

"Did you really?"

"Really," Pepper said. "I told you that. Did you think I made that up?"

"No, I sort of remember," Peter said. He did a little. "I thought maybe you were just being nice."

"I only do that for work," Pepper said. "And I have to do it for work less and less. It's nice to be a billionaire."

Peter said, "So I've gathered."

Pepper smiled. "I would cheerfully and without regret drown anyone who tried to hurt you."

"Sweet," Peter said. 

"So stop being a dumbass," Pepper said. "I know you're feeling a lot because of everything, but please don't doubt I love you. And unlike some people in this family, I don't take forever to say it."

"Or say it in a very specific tone," Peter said. 

"Tony," Pepper said. "He and Rhodey are investigating who tried to kidnap you. I think the current theory is HYDRA."

Peter reached for the ketchup. The fries were pretty amazing. 

Pepper nodded and said, "New subject. We're going to invite MJ over for dinner. Tony and I are going to make an effort to get to know her."

"That sounds like a threat," Peter said. 

"It isn't," Pepper said. "I think you've said she lives with her brother? Are her parents in the picture?"

"Um," Peter said. He ate more fries. "Her mom's in jail. For embezzling. She always makes sure you know that's the white side of her family. MJ's mom's had some, you know, drug issues. She wasn't really present since MJ was ten or something. And her dad's somewhere. He also hasn't been very present for a while. It's mostly been her brother. He's like fifteen years older than her. He's a nurse. So there you go."

"How long have you known her?"

"Well, we were in the same middle school, but we didn't really know each other. We were just in the same place a lot of the time. But we both joined decathlon freshman year at Midtown. She's always been pretty quiet. In that MJ way," he said. 

"You're always smiling when you talk about her," Pepper said. 

"She's pretty awesome," Peter said. 

Peter was glad to go back to dance class. He really liked it. He was very good at it, not just because of the spider thing, but because he'd spent so much of the past two years being very present in his body. It was hard to phrase it exactly, but before he was Spider-man, he was always in his head. So dance class was relaxing even if he generally left exhausted. 

This time there were two more bodyguards and all four were at the entrance of the studio. As they walked out, Peter said, "You're coming home with me, right. Right?"

"Yup," MJ said. "Can't wait to be interrogated by your new parents. Did they already do a background check?"

"Probably," Peter said. "But Tony's been rich his whole life, he's pretty cautious."

"About what?" MJ looked very skeptical.

Peter said, "I mean, he doesn't trust people very easily. He keeps people at a distance, sort of. Some people."

"And assumes people dating his kid are out for money," MJ said. 

"He doesn't think that about you at all," Peter said. 

They were already in the car. MJ reached for Peter's backpack and started rooting through it. "How do you not have any of those bars with the nuts? I see you eating those gross oat things all the time and I want one." She lifted the flip phone. "What's this?"

Peter took it from her and put it back in his backpack. "It's the in case of emergency break glass phone. If the world is ending and Tony is out of the picture, I'm supposed to use that to call Captain America so I don't die."

"It's the call Captain America phone?"

"But only in case of emergencies, like apocalypse bad," Peter said. "No using it for fun."

MJ nodded. "So you carry it around."

"I have to have it with me to be able to use it for emergencies," Peter said. "Don't tell Tony I let you see it."

"I figured," MJ said. 

MJ was actually pretty awkward at first. She definitely reverted to freshman year levels of staring and not saying much. Pepper just kept smiling and nodding and saying patient things while Tony was very Tony but eventually MJ was back to normal. 

Then she had to go home directly after dinner so he was kissing her goodbye at the door. "How thorough a background check did they do on me?"

"I'm generally scared to ask," Peter said. "But they really heard you tonight about the importance of privacy. I'm sure of it."

She squeezed his butt. "This weekend we have makeout time, right?"

"Saturday or Sunday," Peter said. "For you reducing me to a cheap physical thrill."

"You're not cheap," MJ said. "And it's not my fault you have that fantastic physique."

"See you in school," Peter said. 

He'd Spidermanned a few times since the kidnapping attempt. This time he did his usual check on the three homeless guys and their shelter. It was getting colder. Then he just followed where the wind and noise took him. It sounded poetic in his head. Maybe he'd write it down, for a future English assignment. 

He saw something out of the corner of his eye. "Hey, Karen, turn off all the recording for a moment, okay?"

"Are you sure, Peter?" 

"Very much so," Peter said. "Thanks."

He landed on a roof and waited for her to come to him. Which she did, very quickly. "Thanks," he said. "For saving me."

Black Widow said, "You would've been fine, I'm sure. I was actually following the bad guys, not you."

"You're just randomly tracking some HYDRA guys coming after Tony Stark's kid?"

"How do you know I wasn't randomly tracking HYDRA guys who were after Spider-man?" She had a very slight smile. 

"I was hoping it was the first one," Peter said. "Do you think they knew?"

"No," Black Widow said. "They didn't know. They thought you were some random teenager Tony adopted."

"I am some random teenager," Peter said. 

Black Widow said, "Not so random, really."

"What does that mean?" Peter was already tired of this. He wasn't Tony, he didn't enjoy trying to parse every thing people said for double and triple meanings. He sounded whiny and young, but he figured it was because he was whiny and young. 

"I just meant you were also Spider-man," she said. "I hear Tony might have called Steve because of you."

"If he did, he, Tony didn't tell me," Peter said. "Is that why you're in New York?"

"No," she said, smiling.

"Do you need anything from me? Sorry, that sounded rude," Peter said.

"Not really," she said. "I don't need anything from you, I just wanted to say hello. Hopefully we get to know each other better soon."

"Sure," Peter said. "Let me know if you need help."

He told Karen to turn back on after she was totally out of view. "Don't tell Tony I turned you off," he said. 

MJ picked Saturday for their exciting date. She sat down on his bed and said, "Let's do it. It it. You know what I mean."

He said, "Okay, cool. Fantastic idea."

They listened to music and got distracted by youtube spirals. MJ was basically naked except for her cute panties. She was sprawled across the bed and also his chest. She said, "Honestly, I want to know why every single time we check something out on youtube we always end up at John Mulaney clips. This is about you. When we do this on my laptop, there's never John Mulaney."

"He's funny," Peter said. He closed his laptop and slid it off the bed. 

"Do you want to fuck now?"

Peter said, "That was my --, yeah."

She pulled off his underwear and then licked her palm in a very vulgar way that was so hot. She put her wet hand on his dick and started to tug up and down. He said, "Maybe we should --"

"Nope, you're a superpowered sixteen year old boy. Pretty sure you'll get hard again quick," MJ said. They were both on their sides facing each other on the bed. She leaned closer to him and he reached out to rub the soft skin on the bottom of her breast. MJ sighed a little, in a good way. She said, "I've done a lot of reading the past two weeks, like Scarleteen, about all this intercourse. I know Pepper made you have all those tests and I'm already on the pill so I think we can do this with no condom."

At which point he embarrassingly came all over her hand and his stomach. "Okay?"

MJ went to the bathroom and came back with a very soft hand towel and without her underwear. "I like this look," he said. "I mean, you're beautiful."

"Thank you," she said. "I've already told you a lot that you're very pretty."

"I appreciate it," Peter said. He grabbed her hips and pulled her towards his face. He wanted her happy and relaxed and he really wanted her to come. It was his favorite thing in the world, basically. 

She said, "Oh, I like this idea." She got less and less coherent as he touched her. She completely stopped talking to him when he used his tongue on her. She even moaned a little. He put his tongue inside her as he rubbed at her clit. Her thighs were clenching around his ears. Then she came and he eased her off him and onto her back on the bed. She smiled up at him as he shifted over her. 

He said, "Me on top or you?" 

"Me," she said. He got back on his back pulling at her legs. She had the longest legs. 

They were both moving their hips and hands and then she was all lined up and she said, "Don't move. Let me do it here, okay?"

"Yup, yup, yup," he said. His hands were hovering over her thighs, waiting. She guided his dick a little and then it was the tip and she was slowly sinking down. "This is nice," he said. It was fantastic and amazing and he really hoped it was that good for MJ. 

Once she had lowered herself to the point where she could rest against his hips. It was even more fantastic and amazing and overwhelming and then she started wiggling. "Okay," he said. "Can I start moving now? Or do you want to? Or --"

"Yup," she said. He grabbed her thighs and let her set her own pace at first but at some point she said, "Go ahead," and he was pushing up and holding her. He tried to be relaxed but everything in him was very excited and downright propulsive. She held his wrists and said, "Okay, let up on the grip a little there."

"Sorry, sorry," he said, letting go of her completely. He exhaled slowly. He could see bruises forming on her thigh. He frowned a little. 

"We're good," she said. She pushed his stomach down and started setting the pace again. "We're good." 

Something about her voice and the way her hands spread on his abs pushed him right to the edge and he came. She slumped over him and said, "That's good. That was good, right?"

"Absolutely," Peter said. She kissed him a few times and he kissed her back. Then she got up and pulled him along with her to the bathroom.

"I love your over the top bathroom." She gestured at the large tub and the shower next to it and the huge sink. He had a heated toilet seat and heated floors. 

He finished up first and pulled on clean underwear and sweatpants. Big first time, he thought. He definitely liked doing that with MJ. 

Peter felt something rising welling up in his chest, a leaden pressure on his heart. MJ walked in from the bathroom and looked at him, blinking. "Why are you crying?"

Peter rubbed at his eyes. "I'm sorry, it's not you. It's not you."

MJ reached out for him and touched her forehead to his. "Then why are you upset?"

Peter closed his eyes. "It was just. You know, first times. I would always tell May. You know?" He couldn't really keep talking about it. "I'm sorry, it's not you." He was ruining everything. 

"Okay," she said. "I get it." She kissed his cheek. "Can you scoot back so I can hug you without being all bent over?"

He almost smiled at that. But then he was just miserable and sad and crying. He wasn't sure how long he was sitting with MJ and being an asshole, just sad and ruining her first time. 

Peter laid back on the bed. "You can head out if you want. I'm just going to wallow, okay."

"I can stay," MJ said. "You're not wallowing. You know, grief, mourning. It catches up to you sometimes." She laid down next to him. 

He sniffled. He said, "Did you read an article?" He smiled a little so it didn't seem too mean. He hoped it wasn't mean.

"Me and Ned did a bunch of reading, okay? We care about you," she said. After a while, she got up and said, "I am gonna head out. Make sure you eat dinner."

He kissed her goodbye and then got on the bed. He curled on his side away from the door. He started to fall asleep, a little. He heard MJ talking to Pepper. He didn't concentrate on it. 

He actually fell asleep. He woke up a few times and felt miserable all over again. He was being overdramatic and he'd ruined MJ's day. 

Peter woke up again and someone was next to him. Tony was next to him. Tony said, "Hey."

Peter shifted a little on the bed.

Tony said, "When I first realized I was in love with Pepper, I thought, it would be so nice for her to meet my mom. Even my dad. They would have liked her so much. But they didn't. Never will. They would have loved you, too. Howard would have thought you were the best. So much more well behaved than I ever was. It's funny, it's been twenty years. More than. But there were days in that first, you know, decade when it would come out of the blue and I couldn't tell them something." 

Tony cleared his throat. He said, "Unlike you who actually expresses that, I would just get drunk and sleep with incredibly attractive people. Or take drugs and sleep with unbelievably attractive people. Don't do that. Don't do that as a way to stop your feelings, you should definitely have sex, it's great."

Peter mumbled, "Yeah." 

Tony pressed closer to Peter. He clasped Peter's shoulder and let go. "You're not an asshole. Or a loser. I love you, kid. Sorry I can't think of something more eloquent to say. I'm not the greatest of comforts. But I can sit here while you try to sleep." 

Peter actually fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Monday afternoon he spent with Ned at Ned's place for Ned and Peter special time. Ned was saying, "It's kind of amazing to me that Tony's so nice to you."

"Thanks," Peter said. 

Ned said, "You know what I mean. He kinda didn't care that much when you first met."

"Okay," Peter said. "Sure. But he warmed up to me. After Homecoming and stuff." Not that Peter had expected much of Tony when he'd called him for help. "And he did have those three months before he decided to adopt me. To get used to me. Even if I was mostly, just, whatever."

"Yeah, you're pretty low maintenance in your grief," Ned said. "It's okay if you wanted to be a messy asshole, and be angry all the time."

"I've been angry," Peter said. 

"I know," Ned said. "I know, dude. But mostly you stare and cry and disassociate, but not in the symptom sense. And you're pretty, as we've discussed, so, like, it's picturesque sadness."

"You're making me feel dirty," Peter said. 

"Well," Ned said. "It's not something you do intentionally, so it's okay."

"Okay then," Peter said. "How's church going?"

"Oh, good," Ned said. "First we pray. After that we have a list of local organizations and we volunteer for them and help them with outreach and actually talk to homeless people. Then we go back to church and pray some more. We're definitely making some progress."

"That's super cool," Peter said. 

"I hope by the end of the school year we can have, like, our own homeless program for the teens at church? Find our place to help out," Ned said. 

"I'm glad I know you," Peter said. 

Ned blushed. Then he said, "So I think we'll have that plan for Pepper pretty soon."

"For Pepper?"

"I don't think Tony will really seriously be the one considering the proposal," Ned said. 

"Good point," Peter said. 

A few nights later, Peter was out patrolling. It was very quiet. Mostly, Peter was focused on general helpfulness which people always needed. He stopped some lady who tried to push a guy in a wheelchair. "I think he's got it," Peter said. He also carried groceries for, like, four different people including a very old man who told him all about the history of shirt waists. The guy had been a professor. When Peter got home, he checked wikipedia and all of it had been true. 

He filled the tub with hot water and a bath bomb from Lush Pepper stocked the bathroom with. He called MJ. "I love my big tub," he said.

"It's fantastic," she said. "Someday I'm going to use it."

"You can come over and use it whenever you want," Peter said. 

"That's not true. My brother's not exactly going to give me permission to sleep over at my boyfriend's house. And I'm not some asshole who gets off bucking authority," MJ said. 

"Are you implying I am?" Peter flexed his toes and then moved his feet through all five positions. 

"Of course not," MJ said. "What are you doing right now?"

"Bath, a little stretching," Peter said. "Talking to you."

"One of those Lush bombs, right?"

"I really love them," Peter said. "We should, like, um, have sex again."

"So assertive," MJ said. "Yeah, we should. But you don't have to make up for anything."

Peter didn't say anything. 

MJ said, "If I don't think you do, you definitely don't get to decide that that's something I need made up for."

"That's that, confusing sentence," Peter said. "Besides, maybe I want a better first time."

"That's actually impossible unless you're changing the definition of first time. I guess you could still have mores first time with a guy," MJ said. "Or, like, first time anal? I'm not interested in that."

"You could do me," Peter said and immediately wanted to take it back. That seemed like something that could definitely wait. 

MJ laughed. "Let's revisit that, like, another time."

"Or not," Peter said, laughing. "We don't have to."

He nearly fell asleep in the tub but once his eyes started to close, he pulled himself out. He drained the tub but he didn't really clean it. May would have made him clean it. But May, Ben, none of his family had this size of tub. Maybe on vacation. Maybe May would be like Pepper if she'd had that opportunity. Pepper always said don't make a mess and do nothing. Don't be an asshole. 

The next night on patrol, he broke up ten fights, nearly got stabbed twice, and found a dead body. None of that was for the first time. He had Karen call the cops to come get the corpse. It looked like the person had passed away from starvation and exposure which was awful. Should never happen, he thought. 

Then he spotted a bad guy skulking around. Technically, Karen spotted him using facial recognition and he was a hypothetical bad guy on a watchlist related to HYDRA Peter had had Karen download. But after Peter followed the guy for a block, he saw the man take out a poster full of Nazi bullshit and glue it up on the window of a local diner. After the guy had turned the corner, Peter used his handy pen he always carried around these days and wrote on the poster. This was put up by Allen Frotler who lives on Jacobus St 

He had MJ in his head arguing that people who had to see that poster would be traumatized and hurt and he should try to take it down, not just write the guy's name on it. But Peter didn't have the right solvent with him and he still needed to follow Frotler, who could do worse than hurtful posters. 

Not that Peter wasn't one of the people who could be hurt, there was some crap about not straight people on there. He wouldn't say anything, though. Now that he was rich, he was basically one of the least marginalized people in the world. 

He wrote it on the second poster he saw Frotler put up, too. Then he kept following the guy from higher up. Frotler got on a bus and Peter hopped on top. Frotler got off the bus and Peter did the same. Warehouse area. So many warehouses. Luckily, Peter had Karen to scan for him because it would have been easy to lose Frotler. 

"Definitely going somewhere," Peter muttered. His spidey sense was urging him on. 

Except Frotler went in somewhere and Karen told him there were multiple people inside, multiple weapons. Peter sent a silent alarm to Tony to convey to Vision and Rhodey. He scoped around the outside of the warehouse, trying to see if there were any exits he'd missed. Probably secret underground tunnels. He'd never been in real secret underground tunnels. MJ would think it was totally cool. She'd watched every movie and documentary she could find about the Paris tombs. Whatever they were called. Catacombs?

Finally, Iron Man arrived. Alone. "Why just you?"

"I'm the one who's awake," Tony said. "So we're doing a mostly recon mission."

"Or," Black Widow said. "I can help." She appeared out of nowhere on the same roof Peter was on. 

"Or not," Tony said. "Come on, Nat. I can't afford your kind of complications right now. I'm working on the fucking accords, I'm working on Ross. If you're seen, everything's fucked up."

"I feel like you've forgotten a lot about me if you think I'll be seen," Black Widow said. 

Peter thought that was maybe a good point. He kept quiet, though. 

Tony was definitely frowning, Peter could tell just by knowing him. Probably Black Widow could tell, too. 

"Fine," Tony said. "Fine."

Tony already had a plan, probably one he'd worked out flying over. He told Black Widow to do whatever she wanted, just not be seen. "I like that plan," she said. 

Peter and Tony went around the whole warehouse, sealing everything in. "Are there secret underground tunnels leading to a subterranean lair? That would be kinda cool."

Tony said, "Kid, I love you, but I sure as fuck hope not."

Then Peter went in through the one entrance they'd left open, just walked in and said, "Hey, HYDRA. How are you guys doing?"

People turned to look at him, they were all dressed badly in stupid black uniforms. Peter managed to easily dodge the hail of bullets even as all the idiots shot upwards as he jumped up to the ceiling. Then Iron Man flew in through the holes they'd made. Everyone tried to run, but all the doors were blocked so they had to go out the way Peter'd come in. Tony and Peter had already set up some web cages that would be triggered by the idiots running out. 

Peter spotted someone pushing a table to the left. "Look, look, like there's a secret tunnel under there!"

Peter went back to sending taser webs at the guys not running out the door or running into Iron Man's pulses. But he kept an eye on the table guy. "Secret tunnel!!" He almost bounced as he started leaping towards the spot where the floor opened up. 

"No," Tony said, very loud. "We don't just randomly jump down open holes in the floor."

"Come on," Peter said. "We can do it together."

There were twenty people in the warehouse including Allen. Ten went out to the traps, eight are unconscious on the floor. Tony might have killed some of them, Peter decided not to investigate that too closely. Two went down the tunnel. Peter leaned over the opening to see if Karen can scan it or give him some idea of what's below. 

"I said no," Tony said. 

Black Widow came in through the one entrance. She leaned over the hole. Up close, Peter could tell she'd been doing some fighting. She'd won, clearly. She said, "I know where these lead."

"Underground secret lair?" Peter didn't keep the eagerness out of his voice. 

Black Widow smiled. "Something like that." Then she turned to Tony. "Why don't you two leave and I'll contact some friends I still have at SHIELD to pick up the guys outside. No one will notice, promise."

"Promise," Tony repeated, his voice flat. 

Black Widow said, "You take care of you and your complicated work, and I'll take care of this."

Tony shrugged and patted Peter on the head. "You heard the lady, kid, let's go home."

Peter didn't love it, and he hated being protected which was exactly what was happening, but he was also exhausted. 

When he woke up the next day, Tony was in his room again. "What about privacy," Peter muttered. 

"Someday, I'm sure you'll get some," Tony said. "This particular HYDRA branch, which tried to kidnap you, is taken care of."

"Was there a secret underground lair?"

"Honestly, yes," Tony said. "Cap took care of it."

"The Captain America?" Peter sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Tony nodded. "Your face right now," Peter said. He laughed. 

Tony didn't laugh. "Look, the last time Cap and I were in the same room he nearly killed me. And I nearly killed him. And it was unpleasant. There's a lot of anger. On my side, probably his."

"Should I stop laughing at you?"

Tony smiled. "No, that's what kids are for, right?"

Peter swallowed against a grief bomb. He'd decided to call them that, that welling up that hit him when he thought about May or Ben or his parents. Or all four at once. It felt like a bomb happening in his throat and chest and heart. He inhaled. He said, "I'm here to laugh at you."

Tony leaned forward and hugged Peter. He was good at that. Good hugger. 

It was a weird day. Everything felt weird because Peter felt fine all day. No waves of grief pulling him down, no shaking or sudden crying. Not after the morning. 

He felt intensely guilty whenever he thought about it. So weird day. 

Peter had second time sex at Midtown, in the second floor lab. MJ proposed it and Peter accepted it very eagerly. "We have a time limit here," she said. She pushed down her jeans and underwear. "Okay, come on," she said, laughing. "Get those pants off."

He did like he was he told and then reached between her legs to get her warm and wet. She was already a little turned on and she had her hand on top of his, their fingers working together. She said, "I was thinking about this all afternoon."

"I'm glad you didn't tell me until ten minutes ago," he said, breathing into her neck. She was already so warm and slick. She smelled really good. He got her jeans down to her ankles so she could spread her legs. He guided his dick into her. Which felt so great and the happy noise she made was even better. 

He held her butt with one hand and tried not to thrust too hard. MJ said, "Good, good." He could barely breathe and he was also breathing too much and his heart was racing and all of these were good things. Everything felt great. Really really good. 

He came first and they made out a little more until she came, too. MJ stretched her arms up. She said, "I got these towels from the locker so they're not great."

"Good enough," Peter said, cleaning her up and then himself. He pulled up her jeans and underwear, and buttoned them up. He smoothed her hair a little. 

She said, "I'm not as nice as you." She kissed him and he tasted her lip gloss. 

He kept kissing her, he basically loved kissing her and could do it forever. Then he heard steps somewhere near and pulled away, got his pants on. The steps walked by the door and didn't come in. MJ giggled and leaned in to him. She said, "But our relationship isn't just sex. Not just this sex, but all sex. We do lots of things besides that."

"Totally," Peter said. "When we're at school, usually, and dance class. Why are we talking about this?"

"I feel like that's a thing that happens in high school. You have sex, like this, and that's the whole relationship. Then they break up because they never talk," MJ said, looking down at her feet. 

"We talk all the time," Peter said. He paused and pressed his lips together. "Okay," he said, "if you want, we can stop having sex."

MJ smiled at him. "I really like it, though. I mean, I'm raising the issue. So we're thinking about it."

Peter nodded. He said, "Want to come home with me? We can do homework. Spend the whole time in the living room. Tony and Pepper will ask you to stay for dinner."

"You could come home with me," she said, smiling and then stopped. "You could."

"Yeah, I'd love to," Peter said. "Sounds great." He got out his phone and texted Tony to check. Tony replied quickly. "Okay," Peter said. "Tony says it's okay but I have to take two bodyguards."

"Awesome," MJ said, rolling her eyes. 

Peter was actually excited about going to MJ's and meeting her brother for possibly longer than five minutes. The bodyguards came with them on the subway and then the bus. MJ was very insistent. "You can get driven home, but I would really prefer to limit my time in expensive single person transportation."

"Okay, there's generally three or four people in the car, me, bodyguards, drivers. Also, all of Tony's cars are electric and have next to no carbon footprint," Peter said as they walked to her apartment. 

MJ said, "Sure, sure, but also, you're in a car, separated from everyone. Like people become increasingly unreal. You start to think everyone has a soaking tub in their bathroom."

"I wouldn't," Peter said. 

"You were the one quoting power corrupts at me," MJ said. 

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be resisting. There's no nobility in being poor, it just sucks. I wouldn't be a better person if I were in the foster system," Peter said.

"You know I agree with you," MJ said. "I've been lecturing you about the stupidity of being too proud for charity. Not anymore, of course."

They were at MJ's door. Peter said, "Okay. Fine. Homework now, right?"

She kissed him and he touched her cheek before they broke apart. She said, "I know I'm pissing you off."

"You're not," he said. "I'm just irritable."

"You're barely irritable," MJ said, opening the door. She waved at the bodyguards. "Do you need to come in?" 

The bodyguards both shook their heads. MJ told them to knock if they needed to use the bathroom or anything. She closed the door. 

Peter heard one bodyguard go outside to the building entrance and one stay right by MJ's apartment's door.

He'd been to MJ's apartment before, a lot of times between Homecoming and May's death. Then he was in Manhattan being rich and MJ preferred to visit him in his new place. He said, "We don't come here often. I mean, us."

MJ shrugged. They both spread out on the kitchen table, laptops and phones and books. MJ said, "I used to have better wifi than your apartment did."

"Good point," Peter said, nodding. "Good point." 

Peter ran through each class from first period to last, making sure he was caught up on everything, had all his reading done and did his actual homework. He started outlining his paper for AP US History. "20th century, right?"

MJ nodded. "Don't steal my topic."

"Which are you doing?"

"I'm writing about anarchists and unionists in New York City in the 1910s and 1920s.," MJ said. "Probably. What are you doing?"

"My new grandfather, probably," Peter said. "Not probably, I'm doing the outline now."

"Howard Stark? Isn't that cheating a little?"

"Because we have all the bios ever written about him? Including some real trashy ones, like, barely sourced," Peter said. "I'm still reading the books."

"I just meant, like, you have pretty good access to the primary sources," MJ said.

"On the other hand, have you ever actually heard Tony want to talk about Howard? He's not a great primary source. They had a very complicated relationship," Peter said, making air quotes. "Also, I was going to focus more on the early years, World War two, maybe a few years post war."

"Are you actually interested in him?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Peter said. "He was a genius. Towering mind of the century, et cetera."

"Do you think he'd like you?" MJ looked like she actually did wonder. 

"Probably," Peter said. "Tony said he would."

MJ nodded. "He'd know." 

They both went back to studying for an hour or so. MJ made them both snacks and Peter insisted on eating on the couch. MJ was fiddling around, trying to pick what to watch on Netflix. He tugged her onto his lap. 

She said, "Documentary."

"Got it," he said. "Nothing too grim."

"Got it," she said. 

He actually fell asleep watching something about arms sales in South America. It was grim, but not systematic torture grim. MJ pushed at his shoulder. The show was over and MJ's brother was milling around in the kitchen. "Now you have bodyguards," he said. 

"Sorry," Peter said. "I'm sorry."

"No problem," MJ's brother said. MJ handed Peter his backpack. She'd packed everything up for him. 

"Okay," Peter said. "Time for me to go." 

MJ frowned but she kissed him goodbye. He walked out and the bodyguards followed him. There was a car waiting. He fell asleep in the car, too. When he got home, MJ had texted him. It was a sort of apology, her brother didn't like white people with guns hanging around the apartment. Peter could definitely understand that. 

The cold of November meant a seasonal change in Spiderman work. Peter spent a lot of time helping to put out fires, literally. Lots of people who couldn't afford heating trying to get heat with very flawed plans. He'd done some real work making his webs more fire retardant. Lots of the usual muggings, too. Then he got shot at a few times. He was getting good at this, he thought. Neighborhood level crimes he could master. 

Thanksgiving was the next week. Peter and May and Ben had always gone to Ned's since Peter was ten. Ned had a big family and his mom was happy to make room for the three of them and then the two of them. 

Pepper smoothed her hair. "Well, we'll ask Ned's mom. I guess if Mrs. Leeds doesn't want us, then we'll, we'll figure that out."

Peter stared down at his dinner plate and didn't say anything because he was sure he was going to whine. He looked at Pepper's hands and their perfect manicure. She was nervous. Like Mrs. Leeds wouldn't want them. 

Peter said, "She wants you to come, don't worry."

"Tony and I can be, you know," Pepper said. 

"Wonderful? Charming?" Tony tapped his fork on his plate.

"Divisive, controversial," Pepper said.

Naturally, Mrs. Leeds was more than happy to have them. Peter volunteered them for drinks so naturally, Tony had bought cases of soda and water and juice and wine for the adults. Peter convinced him to cut the whole thing down to an acceptable level of generosity. Then Tony and Pepper came out in their robes and Pepper said, "What should we wear?"

"I don't know," Peter said. "I'm gonna wear this." He was in jeans and a button down with a sweater over that. He was wearing a pair of new sneakers. It was a little cute how befuddled they were. "May would wear a dress, I guess." 

"A sort of formal casual," Peter added because it was nice to see them both freak out. 

Tony rolled his eyes and went back to his bedroom. Pepper frowned at him and followed Tony. Tony ended up in the much more expensive version of Peter's outfit and Pepper was wearing grey wool pants and a black cashmere sweater. Peter gave them a thumbs up. "Can we go now?"

"Yes, you little ass," Tony said. 

Everything was fine. Peter kept checking that Pepper and Tony weren't embarrassed or being too embarrassing so he didn't spend too much time thinking about all the dead people he loved. Ned had a huge crush on this person in his church youth group ("I think they're a they," Ned said. "An adorable hot they.") and Peter was happy to talk to him and listen to him on the subject. He really liked when Ned was happy. 

MJ texted him all day about the lie of Thanksgiving and various tweets from Native activists. 

On the drive home, Pepper was on her email with some issue with the energy plants in Germany. Tony put his arm around Peter. He said, "I'm thankful for you. I was definitely not prepared when everything happened, I cared about you but I didn't realize how much I could. Then you were there and it was like my heart grew three sizes. Even though it didn't because then I would be dead. You snuck in there. Like a virus."

"Which also could have killed you, I guess," Peter said. 

"You made me a better person," Tony said. "You made me a father and who knew I wouldn't screw that up completely?"

"Give it some time," Peter said. "You don't know how I'll turn out."

"I haven't screwed up completely so far," Tony said. "Good. So Pepper's pregnant. You're going to be a big brother."

"Oh," Peter said. "A real --"

"Shut up," Pepper said. "We have a real child, which is you. Now we'll have two real children. Fingers crossed. We're only telling you, I'm only nine weeks along. Tony, we were going to wait and tell him at Patty's."

"I hate waiting," Tony said. He squeezed Peter's shoulder. "You're good on that, right? You're not going to make her yell again? No talking about real kids vs. you as not real. You're our son, we love you very much."

"You're a little drunk," Peter said. 

"Tiny bit," Tony said. "Mostly I'm just really happy. I have you and Pepper and that makes me happy."

"Okay," Peter said. 

"I love you both, too," Pepper said. "Don't worry, we'll still talk about this with Patty since Tony screwed up telling you."

"Congratulations," Peter said. He smiled and mostly meant it. 

When he got back to school, he managed to not tell Ned or MJ. That felt impressive. And everytime he felt like he was going to be replaced because he was just adopted and all his parental figures abandoned him by dying, he would just text his very own therapist.


	4. Chapter 4

On Wednesday, when he didn't have dance class and he either had special Ned Peter time or date time with MJ, he and MJ sat on the steps at high school. MJ said, "Look, it's, you said something to Tony, didn't you? Today you have four non-white bodyguards."

"Did I?" Peter was holding MJ's hand and he was leaning on her shoulder. "Also, it's probably Pepper. She can be seriously extra."

"Look, my brother likes you fine."

"I want him to actually like me," Peter said. 

"Why?" MJ didn't withdraw her hand, but her grip was definitely less tight. "Why does he have to like you? I like you, the end."

"Why is it so bad if I want your brother to like me? He's important to you, he's a good guy," Peter said. "Why are you angry right now?"

"Not everyone has to accept your new super rich lifestyle," MJ said. "I'm angry because I'm angry. I'm an angry teenager." She pulled her hand away and looked off somewhere.

"That's an answer," Peter said. "Are you angry at me? Because you could talk to me. I hope you would."

MJ exhaled, clearly frustrated. "I'm not angry at you. I'm just angry. It's been a shit week, okay?" 

He reached for her hand again and she let him take it. He kissed the back of her hand. He was pretty sure he knew which news story was setting her off. He said, "Definite shit week."

She kissed his cheek. "My brother doesn't dislike you," she said. "He doesn't. We can go back to your place, he won't even be home. Tell Pepper to send the bodyguards of color next week."

"This gesture could be Tony," Peter said. "I'll tell them both."

They spent the afternoon laying on the bed, staring at each other and making out periodically. They even had sex once before dinner. MJ was much less angry after that. MJ said, "Please don't think you can pacify me with sex." She rubbed his shoulder, the nearest part of him to her. She said, "You can try."

Peter got actually kidnapped the second week in December. It happened as he was on his way to Ned's. A block from school Peter's spidey sense went off so much he flinched. He looked up and back. Then both the bodyguards in front of him went down with a crackle of electricity. He heard more crackles at the same time, which was probably the two behind him. In the split second Peter started to jump he was hit by the same crackle. He was definitely slowed down. By the fifth strike he was facedown on the sidewalk. "Shit, this kid took forever to go down," he heard. 

He could probably get up, he thought. He wondered if the bad guys would strike his bodyguards again. They were all still alive. Peter maybe couldn't get up as easily as he thought. He only opened his eyes a little. A crack. He breathed slowly. Like he was unconscious. Someone felt him up, taking his phone out of his pocket and pulling off his shoes. "Shoes?" Bad guy said. 

Other bad guy said, "Trackers in shoes."

Peter was pretty sure the trackers were in his watch, which they also took off. His backpack, too. One of the bad guys grabbed him under his arms and started dragging him. Peter tried not to struggle. Which wasn't hard because those five strikes actually took a lot out of him. 

They threw Peter in the back of a van, he assumed. His head hit something metal and it felt horrible. Super painful. Ouch, ouch ouch, ow, he thought. Then he passed out. 

It was really embarrassing that he passed out, Peter thought when he woke up. He didn't open his eyes just in case. The left side of his face was pressed against something cold and concrete. Not freezer cold, cold like unheated floor in December. He ached everywhere but mostly a sharp pain in the back of his head. 

Then he got kicked in the stomach and it actually really hurt. "We need him awake. You juiced him up too much." Peter groaned as he started to open his eyes. 

"Where am I?" He went for really shaky. He had had to take a K&R class and the guy had outlined a number of tactics to take with kidnappers. Peter was going for weak and whiny but not too annoying. Too annoying meant more chance of physical abuse. Which Peter could take but if he could get out of this without letting these people know he was Spider-man, he preferred that plan a lot. He was pretty sure Tony would feel mostly fine killing some kidnappers who knew Peter was Spider-man. 

He coughed and felt another stab of his pain in his head. He could see three guys. They were all wearing bandanas around their faces. It looked stupid. The kidnapper nearest Peter said, "How do we call your daddy?"

Peter closed his eyes and couldn't get that classic rock song that started with "what's your name, who's your daddy? Is he rich --" out of his head. He opened his eyes and said, "I don't know but there's a voice verification on the Stark Industries line. If I say my name, it goes to Tony or Pepper."

"That's dumb," one of the kidnappers said. 

Peter looked down so hopefully they wouldn't see him roll his eyes. One of the kidnappers came over and tied Peter's hands behind his back with duct tape and the same to his ankles. It wasn't too tight so that was confirmation they didn't know he was Spiderman. 

They held a flip phone up to his cheek. He really hoped it wasn't one they took from his backpack. But he looked at it and it was the wrong brand. Somehow Captain America was cheaper than his kidnappers. Peter said his name and asked for Pepper plaintively. 

She must be so worried, he thought. MJ would be worried. Ned would be, too. May, he thought. He gave into the tears and cried. It had been almost a year and he still wanted to cry half the time he thought about her. 

He had tipped over to annoying, at least a little, since he got kicked again. He was surprised it hurt that much. Maybe getting fried so many times by the taser was affecting him. Peter coughed again and the same kidnapper punched him in the jaw, twice. 

The kidnapper on the phone hissed at the guy beating on Peter. Suddenly, Pepper's voice came through. "Peter?" She sounded stressed and resolute. That should have scared the kidnappers. Instead the head guy rattled off his demands for money and where the money should be sent. "If you hurt Peter, we'll make every single one of you suffer." She sounded extra resolute. 

Then the kidnappers broke all their flip phones. Smart, Peter thought. He went back to crying. He sniffled and said, "Can I go to the bathroom? Please?"

"No," head kidnapper said. "Piss yourself or whatever, we're not taking you to the bathroom."

"That's a really dick move," Peter said. He squirmed a little. He really needed to be alone. So far, this one room was pretty large, bare walls, very tall ceiling with one window at least thirty feet up. He could get up there in one jump but he just needed to be alone. He went back to whimper crying and laid down on his side. 

One of the kidnappers left immediately. The other two talked and glanced over at Peter and talked more. Peter could hear the conversation and it was pretty fucking dull. What they were going to do with the money, how smart they were to pull it off. 

Peter pretended to fall asleep or pass out. Another kidnapper left. The kidnapper who had previously beat Peter up was the only one left. Peter kept still as the guy walked over. He shifted just as the guy tried to kick Peter in the face. He tried to roll away as the guy tried again to kick him. Instead the guy tasered him again and then kicked him in the face. It was really fucking painful. 

It wasn't that bad. He would bet Pepper was freaking out. Tony, too. MJ and Ned. He heard the asshole leaving, too. He opened his eyes and sat up. It hurt a little even just sitting up, but he'd had worse. He could definitely remember worse. No one was in the room. Peter didn't see any kind of camera. Just in case, Peter pretended to really labor breaking apart the tape on his wrists and then pulled off the tape on his ankles. He scrambled around looking for something to cover the jump up to the window. All he found was a table. Not the greatest. He jumped up and stuck to the window sill. It wasn't strong glass. He punched right through it. 

He knocked out all the glass and pulled himself through it. He looked around. Warehouses. Peter saw a lot of warehouses. He didn't know how much time he had before the kidnappers heard his break out. Also, there might be drones or security cameras in the area. He tried to look less like Spider-man and more like an adrenaline fueled teenager as he scrambled his way up to the roof. From the roof he jumped to the next roof, ran across that one, wished he had his webshooters, ran across that next roof. Then he found a set of stairs on the outside of the warehouse he was on top of, so he ran down them. 

It was getting lighter, like it was close to morning. That wasn't good. Hopefully he hadn't been gone a full day. But he couldn't control that. He was running along empty streets. He heard a car and pressed against the wall. Couldn't be too careful. 

He went towards the lights. He found a gas station. He stopped in the parking lot and took a deep breath. Peter wanted to make sure he leaned into the scared teenager and much less, well, he'd been through worse. He went inside the gas station. He stumbled towards the counter. "Yo, dude, no shoes, no service."

"Please," Peter said. "I just want to call the cops. I need help."

The guy behind the counter looked at Peter from top to bottom. He seemed a little taken back. Then the guy took out his cell phone and handed it over. "Go ahead and call 911, sorry about the shoes. We have slippers if you need them. Do you need a jacket or something?"

"Oh," Peter said. He was fucking freezing. He hadn't even realized. He called 911. He told the operator his name and said he'd been kidnapped. 

The counter guy said "Shit, they took your shoes. And beat the crap out of you, but who takes someone's shoes? Were they expensive?"

Peter frowned at the counter guy. 

His teeth chattered, he was so cold. The counter guy gave him his flannel shirt which smelled like cigarettes. He also gave Peter some big fuzzy slippers. In the two minutes they were standing there waiting for the cops, Peter said, "They were kinda expensive shoes. But I think they were worried there were some, there was a tracker in them. My dad is big into computers." 

Peter was starving, and freezing and it hurt. He didn't even know what he was saying. 

The cops came and moved him out to the parking lot. It was really cold outside and he was getting fond of the counter guy. The cops were being very gentle and he could hear the ambulance coming. Then he heard a very familiar mechanical whine. 

Counter guy was standing in the doorway. He said, "Whoa, Iron Man."

Tony had brought the nanotech one he was mostly testing. It retracted around him and then Tony was hugging Peter, hard. "Can we do the rest at the hospital?"

The cops kindly deferred to Tony, and then he and Tony were in the ambulance together. The paramedics had their hands all over him. He just looked at Tony and tried not to flinch. He said, "Is Pepper okay?"

Tony nodded, his jaw very very tight. "Completely okay," he said. "Don't worry. Everyone's okay." He held up his phone. "See, I'm texting MJ and Ned right now." Peter watched him typing. 

"Okay," Peter said. "Good." He closed his eyes. 

At the hospital, they took all his clothes and took pictures of his bruises and burns and someone cleaned out the gash on his head. He finally got to go to the bathroom and then he had to have an MRI. 

Once again Pepper seemed to appear out of nowhere and she was hugging him very fiercely. He was completely exhausted at this point. He was starving and so tired he couldn't even stay awake and he couldn't fall asleep. He kept telling the story. 

Finally, Tony said, "Why don't we take Peter home now? We can have doctors come in to check on him."

The doctors at the hospital talked a little and then Tony said, "We've got that covered. We're taking him home."

"Okay," Peter said. Someone held his arm and then he changed into the sweats he was given and then he was curled on his side in the back seat of the limo. It was the really nice limo. The heat was blasting which felt wonderful. Peter was resting his head against Tony's thigh and he could feel Pepper rubbing his calf. 

He was only half awake but he definitely heard Pepper saying, "Did you really just take a picture for Instagram?"

Tony patted Peter's hair. Tony said, "I have an alarm. The alarm went off. Peter set it up."

"Pavlov's alarm for instagram posting?" Pepper sounded almost amused. 

"I'm supposed to be more open and charming on social media. Peter suggested just at random intervals, I take a picture and post it. It's not a bad idea. When I was in my twenties and thirties, I never noticed time passing. Never stopped to smell the rose filter and have it to look back. Lot of embarrassing moments with Rhodey or Happy or you I don't remember," Tony said. 

Peter said, "Maybe that was the drugs?"

Tony barked and laughed. "Sometimes it was the drinking." Tony patted Peter's hair. "Go back to sleep."

Peter walked into his home but then he just collapsed on the couch. Pepper brought him a thermos of warm soup. It was some kind of chicken broth with something else in it, Peter didn't care. He ate all of it, it was so fucking good. Pepper brought him warm sourdough bread and something to dip in it which was all he did for the next five minutes. "You want more?" Pepper sounded gentle.

"Maybe more," Peter said. "I could sleep, too."

He fell asleep on the couch. When he woke up, it was because someone was shaking his shoulder. It was a nurse, one of the ones Tony employed. She took him downstairs and they did another physical exam. 

"You're already starting to heal at your normal rate," the nurse said. 

Tony showed up out of nowhere or Peter just wasn't paying attention. Tony said, "Okay. That's what we thought. We told everyone we're keeping you home to rest and recover. Everyone, in this case, is the FBI and SHIELD. You were only gone overnight so it didn't hit the tweeters. I'm sending someone to deal with the guy from the gas station."

"Oh," Peter said. "I was really out of it. I didn't know what I was saying." Because of course, out of everything, Peter was embarrassed Tony might hear that Peter called him Dad. He sighed. "He was pretty cool."

Tony said, "You did good getting out of there. Just what I expected. And they don't know you're Spiderman."

"I figured if they found out, you would kill them," Peter said. "Please don't kill them."

"You're too good," Tony said. "So far, they've been arrested and aren't dead. So far."

"Cool," Peter said. "All the bodyguards are okay, too?"

"Absolutely," Tony said. "Good for you for asking."

"That's a bare minimum of goodness," Peter said. "Total bare minimum. You grew up weird."

"God, yes," Tony said. "Are you still writing that paper on dead old Dad?"

"Yup," Peter said. "Also, I'm starving and we can keep talking over food."

After an omelette and pancakes, Peter said, "What about Grandpapa?"

"I wish you could have called him that to his face," Tony said, grinning. "Sorry to change the subject. Do you want to talk about the kidnapping?"

"I'm going to have to, like, twice, right? Once with Genie and then again with you guys and Patty? Can we set it aside?" Peter kept eating. 

Tony nodded. He drank a little bit of his coffee. He said, "I saw you reading that book, the trashy one."

"Be more specific," Peter said.

"Dad never slept with Steve," Tony said. 

"Okay?"

"I'm saying, I knew the man, he didn't have that air, you know, the guy who got to bang his sublimated crush. When he talked about Captain America, he was very much the guy who didn't get to the banging," Tony said. "I don't know what he did in the thirties and forties for sure, but I wanted to make sure you didn't get pulled down that fantasy lane."

"Tempting," Peter said. "Writing a paper for my AP US history class about the rumors and anecdotal evidence my grandfather fucked Captain America, but it wasn't my plan."

"Please, we both know it would be Cap fucking Howard, to be precise," Tony said.

Peter grinned. "Your argument is your dad was a bottom."

"That's not language I feel comfortable with my teen using," Tony said. "Also, he would only really bottom for Captain America. Or Peggy Carter. Otherwise, nope."

"Well, when it comes to Peggy Carter, samesies," Peter said. 

"Wouldn't we all," Tony said. 

Pepper came in and said, "What are we talking about?"

"Having sex with Peggy Carter," Peter said. 

Pepper smiled. "We're all in favor of it, right? That sounds like you two."

"Yes, indeedy," Tony said, grabbing Pepper's waist.

"That is not what you write your paper about, Peter," Pepper said. 

"I know that," Peter said. 

They kept him home for three days so no one really noticed how fast he healed. Pepper and Tony tried to keep it out of the news. 

MJ came over and tackled him into the bed. She was immediately pulling up his t-shirt and pulling down his pants. She grabbed the collar of his t-shirt with her fist and kissed him, almost biting him. 

It was all very very fast. He said, "Is the door closed?"

MJ leaned her forehead against his. She was breathing like she'd run all the way to Manhattan from Queens. She didn't move but she said, "Do you swear you're okay?"

He held her close, pressed against his chest. He said, "I swear. You know I'm okay."

"Not actually," she said.

He pulled his pants up so he wasn't laying there with his dick out. He rubbed MJ's back. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was almost burrowing into his chest. He said, "I love you. I'm sorry for the timing of telling you that but I do."

"You should be," MJ said. After ten minutes or so of her not moving and panting and nearly crying, she pushed off of him. "Anyway, that was embarrassing."

"Yup," he said. He sat up and said, "Do you want to go, um, not here?"

"Okay," MJ said. "We can, um, I need to go grocery shopping."

Peter sprang up and took her hand. They had a driver and two bodyguards take them to a grocery store. It was a fancier one than the ones Peter went to back in Queens. Peter said, "Does this place work for you? What do you need to get?"

"It's fine," MJ said. "I'm supposed to get. It's for Christmas dinner. My brother wanted me to get everything for that. Everybody's coming. Grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, cousins, cousins one step removed. The whole kit and caboodle." She walked beside the cart while Peter pushed it. He wasn't sure where to go for Christmas dinner stuff. "Peter," she said. She stopped in the middle of the aisle. "You were kidnapped. Again. You looked all beat up. I saw pictures on reddit."

Peter frowned. "Those weren't supposed to go out. Also, I've already healed. I'm fine. Pepper told me she's been kidnapped five times."

"That's fucking horrible," MJ said. She hip checked Peter out from behind the cart and started pushing the cart herself. She went straight to the meat counter. "What even is this place? Fuck."

"Is it too expensive?" Peter looked around like he'd find another meat counter more pleasing hiding somewhere nearby.

"We can afford it," MJ said. "It's just, like, they don't have the cuts of meat I wanted. We can make do. Do you ever go grocery shopping anymore?" She started putting cuts of pork in the cart. 

"No," Peter said. "We have three private chefs. They do the grocery shopping. I actually think the chefs go to farmers' markets and strive for farm to table. Pepper feels very strongly about that."

"So you don't cook. Tony and Pepper don't cook," MJ said. She pushed the cart to the produce aisle. Then she stopped again and took out her phone. She flicked up and down and then showed him the screen. It was a post on reddit with the pictures from the hospital. Peter looked really rough in them. "Are you going to get kidnapped another three times?"

Peter said, "I don't know, but MJ, I'll be fine. The only question was whether I got out without letting them know who I was," he said, making a little web shooter gesture. "Or if they found out. Which they didn't. I've totally been hurt worse than this."

"That's not reassuring," MJ said. "You should go grocery shopping more. Don't isolate yourself."

"I'm not isolating myself," Peter said. "I actually hate grocery shopping."

"Why?"

Peter shook his head. MJ dumped two bags of potatoes in the cart and then some purple baby potatoes. She put in a bunch of multicolored carrots. She rolled her eyes as she pushed the cart past a selection of kale. Peter said, "We did that, Valentine's Day, you know? I know I should confront things and be strong but also, fuck it. But you're right, it's been ten months."

"Shut up," she said. "I'm totally wrong. You don't need to grocery shop. Stop letting me harass you into shit you don't want to do."

Peter just looked at her. He was exhausted. He rubbed his face and started pushing the cart. It was probably heavy. "Can we, come on, MJ. You're upset because I got kidnapped. It's definitely frightening. And also you hate billionaires, correctly but I can't control that I got adopted by two. So we're not really fighting, right?"

"Shut up, again," MJ said. She pulled the cart to the dairy section. "Butter, eggs, and maybe more butter. Brown sugar. Ice. You're carrying all this inside." She sighed. "I hate that you're being so mature. You're sixteen."

"I've been going to therapy since February. And you still win, because I'm a way bigger mess than you. Who started crying right after we had the sex the first time?" He said the last part very quietly. 

MJ shrugged. "I don't care about that." She got all the things she'd listed. Then she said, "Sorry you're not coming to Christmas dinner. You got to be married or living with someone or a baby daddy."

"That, that's not where we are," Peter said. 

"Nope," MJ said. She pulled him into a kiss. She grabbed the collar of his t-shirt again. She said, "That, um, there's an article in People about you probably being kidnapped. They were talking about that instagram pic Tony took."

MJ went back to getting things for this Christmas dinner. "Isn't this all going to go bad in two weeks?"

"No," MJ said. "Christmas dinner is three days from now. We have a lot of relatives so we're actually going to another dinner on Christmas Eve and another dinner on Christmas Day." She pulled out her phone again and showed him the article. 

Peter skimmed it. He said, "I think Tony could have taken a better picture, his composition is shit."

"It's not shit," MJ said. "It's not great. But he was trying not to show your face and you were asleep. Why was he taking pics after you got kidnapped?"

"I told him to, sort of. I told him to take a picture whenever the random alarm went off and post it to Instagram. I'm trying to improve his social media presence," Peter said. 

"Good plan," MJ said. She sounded genuine. 

He actually did carry all the bags in, they weren't even heavy. MJ's brother smiled at him. He said, "Thanks for all the help, man."

"No problem," Peter said, smiling back. He would get that man to love him someday.

For Christmas, he got MJ two leotards and leg warmers and a shrug. "As close as you can get to ethical consumption, I promise. So yes, it's expensive, but that's because everyone in the supply chain was paid a living wage. And sustainable. And zero carbon footprint."

MJ grinned. "Thank you. It's very soft. And black. My favorite." 

She gave him a t-shirt she made herself. "I didn't pay myself a living wage."

They were in his bedroom, with the door closed. MJ had to leave in three hours for another Christmas dinner. She was sitting across from him on the bed touching his hair. She said, "Your hair is getting long."

"I need a haircut. Maybe I can go to Tony's guy."

"Not the facial hair, though," MJ said.

"It would take me honestly years to grow even the mustache," Peter said. 

"You should let your hair grow," MJ said. "You could wear a headband or a man bun, or we could do all sorts of things." She smiled, looking a little evil. 

Peter said, "You want me to grow my hair."

"Just until you're too annoyed with it, let's see how long that takes." She stretched and took off her shirt. "We have time for this, right?"

"Always," Peter said. They got naked very very quickly, and also MJ was so pretty Peter never had trouble getting hard. And he was sixteen. Then MJ lowered herself onto his lap and they were together wrapped together. She tugged at his hair and he kissed her neck while he clung to her waist. 

He came first and she laid back on his bed. She said, "Come on, baby," and held his forearm as he made her come. She said, "Merry Christmas, you filthy loser."

"I'm very clean," he said. "You love my bathtub."

"I really do," she said. 

For Christmas, Pepper got everyone matching pajamas. Including the robots. Really, Tony took the pattern and made little bonnets for DUM-E and U. It was nice and quiet. For his gift, Peter did all the moving of furniture and heavy objects into what was going to be the new nursery. 

New Year's Eve, there was a party at Flash's with all the academic decathlon people and some more people Peter barely knew. Shortly before things really kicked off, Peter and MJ and Ned were in the kitchen. MJ said, "How many shots do you think before Petey boy is actually drunk?"

"At least five," Ned said. He poured them out. It was very expensive whisky. 

"Okay," Peter said. He drank all five quickly. "Fuck this year."

"Fuck it," MJ said, pouring herself a shot and downing it. 

Ned said, "Fuck this miserable year," and did a shot, too. 

It made Peter a little buzzed and progressively more as he drank beer after beer. Which is how he ended up singing karaoke in front of at least ten people. He was okay, not great or good but MJ was drunk and doing a one person wave in front of him and sighing. She clasped her hands and swooned in front of him. "You're the greatest ever, Peter."

When it was her turn, she sat on his lap and sang beautifully. Then they passed on the mic to Ned and made out for a little while. 

Flash said, "You losers missed midnight." He was laughing as he sat down next to Ned. 

"We were probably kissing," MJ said. "When was it?"

"Twenty minutes ago," Flash said. "I was kissing for sure."

"I kissed Betty," Ned said. 

"Yay," Peter said. "I'm so happy for you."

At two am, Peter's bodyguards drove all four of them home, including Betty. After three stops, Peter was sprawled in the back of the limo. He laid back and said, "Fuck this year. Fuck this year."

He went into the house and up to his room. He didn't bother to take off his clothes. 

In the morning, Peter woke up to Tony knocking on his door. Repeatedly. Peter said, "Joke's on you, I don't have a hangover."

"Fantastic, time for breakfast."


	5. Chapter 5

Back at school, he'd officially finished his paper on Howard Stark. He'd somehow managed to not include anything about Howard's sex life. 

MJ was playing with his hair at lunch. Peter said, "I'm gonna cut it soon."

"No," MJ said. "Give it time."

Ned said, "Usually when a romantic partner is controlling someone it's so they can look more pleasing to them. MJ, you're doing this because you think it's funny."

"It's hilarious," MJ said. She leaned forward and said, "He looks so bad when he takes off the mask. So bad."

"I'm cutting my hair," Peter said. He was really close to laughing. 

Betty said, "You really should." She sat down next to Ned. 

"No, you shouldn't," MJ said. "You let me be in charge."

"Until it annoys me," Peter said. 

MJ pulled out some bobby pins and pinned Peter's hair back. "You look so good," MJ said.

Peter laughed and left them in all day. Tony was in the limo when Peter's school day was over. Tony burst out laughing, too, and then went, "Wooop, woop, that's my Instagram alarm. I need to remember this forever." 

"I'm never taking them out. My girl gave them to me," Peter said. 

He did take them out for Spidermanning. He kept checking in his reflection to see if the mask was lumpy on his head. Karen insisted it wasn't because the mask was built to take care of that. Peter didn't believe it. He called Tony to get a haircut. He was done.

It was quiet and weird that night. The weather was unseasonably warm but no one was out. It was eerie. It was a vibe, even Peter felt it. 

Then he went home. In the morning, at seven a.m., Tony ushered in the hairstylist. "Of course you got one straightaway. In the morning." Peter laughed as he sat down. 

"I pay very well," Tony said. "You're good, right, Melvin?"

"Absolutely," Melvin said. He had a vaguely British accent. Peter wondered if it was real. 

It was a great cut, though. Peter was checking himself out in the living room bathroom mirror, which was, of course, really big. The bathroom and the mirror. 

He walked back into the living room just as something was about to happen. He braced himself and reached out to Tony to do, to do something. There was literally a golden ring of fire expanding in their living room. Tony already had the nano armor flowing to him from something he tapped on his wrist. 

A weird older guy came out of the ring and said, "Tony Stark."

Tony already had his hand up. Peter said, "Tony, I don't get a danger vibe" before Tony tried to kill the guy. He meant to say that. It actually came out "Dad, stop."

"Fuck, sorry," Peter said.

Tony actually sniffled. "Really? Right now you pull that out? Now?"

The portal guy said, "I don't have time for this. I've come for your help."

"This was a touching moment," Peter said. 

"I'm here for Iron Man, not the twelve year old scion," Irritating arrogant portal guy said. 

"Fuck you," Tony said. "What do you want? This was nearly a beautiful moment. We're going to redo this, son."

"Fine, Pops," Peter said. 

The most arrogant guy in the room threw up his hands and said, "Stop." Then he started talking again. Apparently there was some major evil coming. Literally large evil, very tall. 

Peter said, "Like phone a friend bad?"

The dipshit magician said, "It's very bad. I don't believe just Iron Man can defeat this, even with my help."

"And Spider-man," Peter said. "Very helpful."

Tony made his "maybe" gesture. 

Peter said, "Are you gesturing maybe to phone a friend or me?"

"Both," Tony said. 

It took twenty minutes before everything actually got talked out. Dr. Strange was some kind of magician. Actual real magic. And there was a monster, some kind of sick meld of science and magic that was probably on its way to midtown. "So, we work out a plan. I have a Spiderboy and a number of drones. I've planned and stopped a Hulk rampage. We'll be fine."

Dr. Strange reluctantly agreed. They had about fifteen minutes before alarms started blaring and FRIDAY informed Tony the monster had come. Peter got on his suit and followed Tony into the portal. 

The monster was really huge. Seven stories high. And disgusting and grey and mottled. Also there were little blinking lights on the monster like it was wearing Christmas lights. The affect wasn't soothing.

The monster was thrashing around, more confused than actively malicious. Then the fourteen eyes clustered around the head saw Dr. Strange and all the lights started blinking red. "It doesn't like you," Tony said. 

"No, it does not," Dr. Strange. "Can you get to work on defeating it?"

"Boy, he's fun," Peter said, swinging in. 

The monster swung its arms back into a building and forward towards Dr. Strange, clutching at the man who was floating out of range. Tony shot directly into the thing's armpits and Peter focused on keeping the damage from the building from falling on anyone. 

There were people in the building that was collapsing. Peter went in and helped the people on the top floors to get out. He webbed up all the stairs so they didn't fall apart. He saw security guards shuffling people out so Peter went towards the windows facing the monster. He found three wounded people. All three were moving, so he managed to grab all three with a kind of sling. He destroyed a window facing away from the monster side and took all three out to the street, trying to be gentle with them. 

"Karen," he said. "Anyone else who can't get out?"

Karen said no so Peter went back to the main battle. The monster had taken some hits but was still rambling towards Dr. Strange. Peter could hear from Tony and Dr. Strange that they were still working on stopping the thing. Tony had practically dropped a bomb on the thing's head. Some of the eyes were out of commission. 

"Maybe we could try stabbing? Anybody got a sword?" Peter swung closer. 

"I got it, good idea," Tony said. 

"Come on, I'm stronger than either of you, send it my way," Peter said.

Dr. Strange gestured and a big sword literally dropped out of a portal in front of Peter. He grabbed it and found a good foothold on a building the monster was ambling towards. He put all his strength behind a straight up stab and the sword sunk right in and then Peter pulled up and out with all his might. It was a lot of might. He cut out a whole chunk off the thing and its insides were super repulsive. "Gross," Peter said. Somehow the thing was still sort of moving so Peter shifted and hacked at the monster. Tony came up behind Peter and started shooting at the open wounds. 

The monster stopped moving and started bubbling. "It's probably going to explode," Dr. Strange said. He created another portal that Tony grabbed and threw Peter into. Thankfully, he followed. 

"Unfair," Peter said as he came out two blocks away on top of a building. He jumped towards the very loud explosion. 

"Shit," Peter said. "Did you get those people out?"

"I took care of it," Dr. Strange said, testily. 

When Peter came around the corner he saw the goo in a kind of funnel that was glowy and then dissipated. "That worked out well," Peter said. "Did you get that sword? That was cool."

"I'm glad you had fun," Dr. Strange with his usual contemptuous tone. 

There was a moment of quiet. Then where the monster muck had been, a bright light burst and there was two of the monster. Both four stories high. "What the fuck?" Tony flew around and attacked both of them with explosives. "What's going on, Doctor?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Awesome, want me to stab them again? Should I not chop off, just stab a lot so they don't become two again?" 

"Yes, do that," Dr. Strange said. He waved his hand and Peter had a sword again. This was a different one. 

Peter jumped from around the tenth floor and jammed the sword right in the left one's head. He braced himself on the thing's head and wiggled the sword around. "This is so disgusting," he said. 

He pulled up and thrust down even harder. Then he pulled the sword out and jumped to the next one. He heard the one he'd stabbed fall over to the ground. He repeated his stabbings again and then jumped to a nearby building to watch the other monster fall over. He went up to the roof and rested in a crouch. "I'm exhausted. Maybe you can take the next one, Tony. The suit should be --"

The two monsters were twitching and bleeding and then imploded into goo. "Shit," Peter said. "Do we get more again? What's going on?"

"I don't know," Dr. Strange said. "This wasn't in the texts." 

"Which texts? Maybe try some new ones," Tony said. 

Peter turned at a sound and saw War Machine and Vision flying in. "Look at that," Peter said. "Cavalry. Vision's pretty strong, too. And I think I'm recovered enough for some more stabbing. But I can't do this all day."

The monster kept coming back. Even when Vision incinerated the entire mass, even when Peter kept stabbing and stabbing, even when Dr. Strange cut the thing in half with a portal and the other half was somewhere in the Andes. The monster got in a few licks, too, thanks to its hugeness and after an hour Peter had to give up stabbing because his wrist and hand got crushed by coming between the monster and a building. It was unbelievably painful. Tony carried Peter up to a roof and said, "You stay here."

"It's going to heal," Peter said, gritting his teeth. It looked as bad as it felt, which was really fucking bad.

Dr. Strange landed next to Peter and reached for his hand. "I used to be a doctor."

"I heal," Peter said. 

"All humans heal, you heal extraordinarily fast," Dr. Strange said. "You need to have this set correctly so it doesn't need to be broken and re-broken to heal right."

"Fun," Peter said. "We don't have time." 

"We have a little time," Dr. Strange said. There was a weird shimmer and Dr. Strange actually conjured a cast and pins. It was somehow more painful than the injury had been. "Now you need to get out of here."

"Fuck that," Peter said.

"Colorful," Dr. Strange said and the shimmer receded. "I stopped time for that."

"Thanks," Peter said. He webbed up the cast and pins and added a sling. Then he leaned over the building. 

The battle just kept happening. Peter did his best to contribute, mostly by calling out things. Then he said, "Hey, Tony, maybe this is a phone a friend situation?"

"Yes," Vision said. "We should contact Captain America. I believe Wanda might be able to help us finally take down this evil mass."

"Everyone knows about the damn phone," Tony said. "Fantastic. We can't just pull it out whenever the going gets tough."

"This warrants their intervention," Vision said. "We can not keep this up."

"Call him," Rhodey said, loudly. 

"I'll do it," Peter said. "I programmed the number into my suit. Call away, Karen."

Cap actually answered really quickly. Which wasn't surprising, if Peter really thought about it. "Hey, we have an issue here. Could use some help."

"You're not Tony," Cap said. "We're not actually that far away. We're on our way."

"I'm Spider-man," Peter said as Cap hung up. He probably figured that out. 

They weren't that far away. Falcon flew in and bombed the monster again. It was effective enough at slowing him down. "Give him the sword," Peter said. "Captain America, I mean," he said. 

"We all got it," Black Widow said. 

It definitely turned the tide. Peter jumped down to the street and started helping full evacuation in the neighboring blocks. He really just got himself over to cops and firefighters pointing out where people still were. Then he got back to the main event. 

Dr. Strange and Wanda were "severing a tether" and everyone else needed to pull on some kind of magic electrified "rope." The crackling energy coming off it meant Tony and Rhodey couldn't touch it (they both tried) and it was too much for the regular folks. Leaving Vision and Cap. And Peter. He had one working arm and he was still super strong. Even with all the agony. He heard Tony protesting but Peter could do it so he was going to. 

It was not easy. Hard as hell. He felt a heat from the crackle and pulling was not nothing. He was using his working hand and the crook of his elbow on the bad one. He should have called MJ. 

It was, though, working. Clearly working. Peter could feel it. Something was being severed deep in the ground. 

It worked, all at once. Something broke and shattered. It hurt, it hurt so much like being stabbed all over. Peter had his eyes closed and didn't realize it. He opened his eyes and saw Tony crouching over him and huh, he was being stabbed. There were large shards of something sticking out of his chest. He was hyperventilating and whimpering, he could hear himself and couldn't stop himself. "Dad Dad help," he was saying. 

He stopped and everything was black. He should have called MJ. Ned. Pepper. 

May. 

He woke up in the Avengers compound, in the medbay, of course. He hadn't been scared. Not really. Getting through the pain to when things were done, that was always a lot. He saw Pepper. "Hey, hey. Are you okay? Is the baby? And Tony? Cap? MJ?"

"Long list," Pepper said, smiling. "Everyone's good. Even you're good." 

Peter could see his hand and wrist with pins and splints. "So I'm out at the same time Spider-man is. Am I?" His head felt wondrously fuzzy. 

"Actually, Tony was injured, too, less than you, but longer recovery, of course. So you're home with me, watching over dear old Dad," Pepper said. "And by the time Tony is well enough to order you back to school, you should be recovered." 

"But everyone's okay?"

"Yes," Pepper said. 

He even got his phone back that afternoon. He immediately called MJ. "Are you okay?"

She sounded fine, actually good. She told him about school, dance class, actual news. "I'm talking to you before I've even seen Tony," Peter said. 

"You sound high," she said. "You looked scary during that fight. Scary, like really injured."

"I'll be fine, not even scars," Peter said. 

"What about the pain? You still experienced that, right?" 

"Yes, yeah. But it stops eventually, you know," Peter said. "It's not a trauma."

"I didn't say it was, I'm trying to understand," MJ said, with a little edge. "You're being defensive."

Peter sighed. "I know. Sorry, I know. It does really hurt, but it's just, I get used to it."

"Okay," MJ said. "Got it."

"Sorry, do you want more?" He wasn't annoyed, he was just exhausted. His hand and chest hurt. "Sorry, I'm just tired."

"No, it's okay, God, Peter," she said. "I know it's getting to be your regular, but it's also really scary for me."

"I know," Peter said. "I love you."

MJ sighed. "You're wonderful."

It took him another day to even see Tony, who looked mildly awful. He reached over and hugged him and Tony was hugging him fiercely. It was nice. Really nice. "Sorry for all the screaming. And dropping the Dad on you out of nowhere."

"I'm not really upset about that," Tony said. 

Peter sat back down. He said, "So are you getting the Avengers back together now?"

"Not my job," Tony said. "Not completely my job. We'll see what we can do."

"I appreciate that," Peter said. 

"Pep's bummed you haven't called her Mom in a moment of panic," Tony said. 

"I can try to bring on a panic attack," Peter said. 

"Do it when we're with Patty," Tony said. "Even better."

He went back to school with matching wrist braces. Which covered the wrist he needed it for. He saw Flash as soon as he got in. Flash said, "I thought Iron Man was the one who was injured."

"You know how Iron Man likes to recover? Way too many video games," Peter said, trying to form two thumbs up. "So many video games."

At lunch, he and Ned and MJ sat in a corner, speaking very quietly. "So when the rope 'broke' it turned into these shards that went everywhere. Very sharp shards. But Tony used his body as a shield for the worst of it so I only got two or three in the chest."

"That's cool," Ned said. "But it looked really bad. So are the Avengers back together?"

"I don't know," Peter said.

"It's not your problem," MJ said. "You didn't break them up and you didn't have anything to do with the Accords. Leave it up to your dear old Dad. Did Peter tell you he's calling Tony Dad now? It's adorable." She looked very sly. 

"Only sometimes," Peter said. "As the mood takes me."

"He is, technically," Ned said. 

"Technically," MJ said. "All the family therapy and therapy is pretty cool, though. More than I thought he'd do."

Peter just laughed. "I appreciate your defense. Hey, how's the homelessness solving going?"

"Going great," Ned said. "We're helping out a group who provide essentials for homeless people like socks, tampons, blankets. So we do that once a week. And once a week we help with tutoring homeless kids and helping them at school."

"That's so much better than handing out pamphlets about premarital hankypanky," Peter said. 

"Seriously," MJ said. "I think we have our birthday proposal in shape for your mom, too. There's a bunch of cool pilot programs that could be super funded by your 'rents."

"Cool," Peter said. "Cool all around."

"You've ruined the word," MJ said. "Never say it again to me or my beautiful friend here."

Valentine's Day sucked, even though Peter didn't really do anything. But it was advertised everywhere and it was all around him and he kept thinking about last year and two years ago and even when he was a kid and his parents were alive. 

The day after, he and Pepper and Tony went to the cemetery where May and Ben were buried to dedicate her tombstone. It was very simple but it covered her and Ben. Tony and Pepper had paid for it. Peter ran his fingers over the cold stone, like it meant anything or he could touch something that May would feel. Or Ben. 

He was also a weepy mess. He wondered if he still looked pretty, like Ned had said. Pepper hugged him and he said, "Thanks, Mom."

"You don't have to force it," she said, sort of laughing. She was crying a little, too. She'd only met May twice. But they'd liked each other. Also, she was probably sad because Peter was sad. 

"I wasn't," Peter said. "Mostly."

Tony said, "I wish we could all go just get drunk. I have some excellent post-gravesite drinks. I used to specialize in it. Ask Happy. Have you ever had cognac? Excellent if you get the good stuff. The really good stuff."

"We're not drinking with our sixteen year old," Pepper said. "And I'm pregnant."

"I said I wish we could," Tony said. 

Peter walked to the car with Pepper. He looked back over his shoulder and saw Tony staring at the grave. "They're having a heart to heart," Pepper said. 

He took MJ out the week after Valentine's day and then they went back to his house. It was Saturday night so MJ had to be home by one am. They had sex in his bed. She told him to be on top. "For some people this is the usual position," Peter said, keeping himself above her, pushing down on one hand. He caressed her neck and jaw and ear. He was trying very hard not to just thrust but just keep up the rhythm MJ wanted. She was very demanding. It was so fucking hot. Peter said, "I love you."

"I love you, too, freak," she said. She dragged her heels along the back of his legs. She'd left her boots on. Also super fucking hot, in Peter's opinion. 

He was trying to help her, he wanted her to come first. She didn't. He rested his forehead on her shoulder and put his hand on top of hers as she got herself off. She twisted around him and said, "I do love you. I've figured it out, I got it. You're gonna put yourself in danger and get hurt. It's going to be awful. But that's just who you are, right?"

"Basically," Peter said. "But you make me better."

"Duh," MJ said. 

She rolled off the bed and dragged him with her. "And I really love your tub."


End file.
